Sue Herald surveyed the remains of her tornado-ravaged home in Putnam County, Tennessee, east of Nashville.

“I’m glad to be alive,” she said.

Herald and her husband were briefly trapped by debris under their collapsed roof before neighbors arrived to help free them, reports the Nashville Tennessean.

“All you could hear was the big, loud noise and then all this cracking,” she said.

On Wednesday, search crews checked damaged homes still standing for survivors — or bodies.

At least one tornado, possibly more, thundered across Putnam and three other counties in north-central Tennessee, killing at least 24 people and leaving more than a dozen missing, some possibly still buried in the rubble of their homes. Dozens more were injured and thousands were left without power.

Based on damage in East Nashville and nearby towns, the National Weather Service estimated the twister was an EF-3, with peak wind gusts of up to 165 mph.

The people of Putnam County had only moments to save themselves when the destruction began on Tuesday. Homes and neighborhoods just west of Cookeville, the county seat, were flattened.

“Near one house, stripped completely off its foundation, Karin Kopinski picked through clothes on the ground, putting them on hangers for her sister-in-law, Tracy Savage, who lived there,” says the Tennessean. “Savage survived after being thrown from the house in a bathtub.”

The destruction was nearly total along a stretch of  U.S. 70 leading toward Nashville, 80 miles west of Cookeville.

Yet some homes were spared with relatively minor damage, and “survivors were left to make sense of destroyed houses being mere steps away from others across the street still relatively intact,” the Tennessean says.

“It just feels kind of unfair that our house is still standing, because five houses this way are down and that one right next to us is down,” said one resident. “I don’t understand how this one is still up, really.”

Tuesday was the deadliest tornado day in the U.S. since May 6, 2013, when 24 people were killed by a tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma, reports CNN, citing the Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.

Along with the 18 dead in Putnam County, reports WBIR-TV in Knoxville, three people were killed in Wilson County, two in Davidson County (Nashville) and one in Benton County. Those numbers may rise.

Gov. Bill Lee quickly declared a state of emergency, and on Wednesday morning ordered flags over the State Capitol and all State office buildings to fly at half-staff until Friday.