Mr. PRESTON HARMAN (Tornado Survivor): I would just assume it would be totaled. Who knows what it's gonna cost to repair this thing.</s>CORNISH: But many other cars were totaled, or like junior student Tabitha Whitby's(ph), totally missing from the lot. Whitby rode out the tornado at the school's shelter.</s>Ms. TABITHA WHITBY (Student, Volunteer State Community College): You know, the day before they were talking about this stuff and we must have just overlooked it because it's nothing major and then when it really does hit it's like, maybe we should have listened that time.</s>CORNISH: Unlike the last round of tornadoes, which struck predominately rural Northwestern Tennessee, Friday's weather hit busy Nashville suburbs. In this county of subdivisions and large upscale homes, people saw roofs fly and cars flip over. And despite hours of warnings and tornado watches, hundreds of people jammed the highways, trying to beat the rush hour storms. Randy Harris, of the Tennessee Management Agency...</s>Mr. RANDY HARRIS (Tennessee Management Agency): As much as you warn people, people are optimistic that maybe they won't be the ones that get hit with it.</s>CORNISH: And there's no way to know who will get hit with it. Weather officials can issue county-wide warnings but can't say when a tornado will actually form and touch down. This is particularly true for the South, says Jerry Orchanian, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Nashville.</s>Mr. JERRY ORCHANIAN (Meteorologist, National Weather Service): You can have a tornado embedded in a rain column and people won't even see it. Out in the plain states, where the terrain is flatter, you can see these tornados ten, fifteen miles away before they come at you, so it's especially dangerous in the South and especially if they hit at night.</s>CORNISH: All of this comes as FEMA officials were visiting the state to assess damage from last weekend's tornados. Audie Cornish, NPR News, Nashville.
A cleanup is under way in the suburbs of Nashville, where at least 12 people died Friday in a new round of tornadoes. More than 160 houses were either damaged or destroyed. Funerals were held elsewhere in the state for victims of earlier storms that left 24 dead. Karen Jensen clears storm debris at her home in Gallatin, Tenn. 