At least 7 people were killed early Tuesday as two tornadoes touched down in central Tennessee, shredding about 40 buildings across the Nashville area
Authorities pleaded with people to stay indoors, at least until daybreak could reveal the dangers of a landscape littered with blown-down walls and roofs, snapped power lines and huge broken trees.
"A tornado skipped across the county," Nashville Mayor John Cooper told the Tennessean while visiting an emergency shelter early Tuesday. "You do have people at the hospital and frankly there have been fatalities."
Tennessee Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman, Maggie Hannan, confirmed the initial death toll of 7.