NASHVILLE, April 8 (UPI) -- Tornadoes in Tennessee have killed at least 12 people and left trails of destruction in Nashville and its suburbs.
The area was the hardest hit by destructive storms that hammered parts of nine states Friday and Saturday, CNN reported. Nine of the dead were in Sumner County, just north of Nashville, while the others were in Warren County to the southeast.
Sumner County Executive Hank Thompson told the Nashville Tennessean he would ask for National Guard troops to patrol the hardest hit areas. Thompson said sightseers were clogging roads.
Gov. Phil Bredesen said he planned to ask the federal government for a disaster declaration for the Nashville area, just as he sought a declaration for two western counties less than a week ago -- when storms killed 24 people in Tennessee, Missouri and Illinois.
"When I was touring west Tennessee earlier this week, I said 'God help us if one of these things comes through a suburban neighborhood,'" Bredesen said.
In Gallatin, north of Nashville, a tornado ripped into buildings at Volunteer State Community College.
