Texas Ends Search For Dead -- Governor Declares Disaster In Tornado-Devastated Jarrell

AUTHORITIES PLANNED to stop searching for bodies today after concluding that 28 people died in the state's worst tornado in a decade.

JARRELL, Texas - Authorities ended the search today for 23 people who had been unaccounted for after a devastating tornado, concluding that those considered missing had turned up alive or were among the unidentified bodies.

The death toll from Tuesday's tornado was placed at 28. Many of the victims remained unidentified at the medical examiner's office in Austin because their body parts had been scattered by the storm.

"They believe the names and bodies will match up as the bodies are identified," said Laureen Chernow, a Department of Public Safety spokeswoman.

The revised figure resulted from a double count of bodies and people simply turning up, department spokesman Mike Cox said.

"They were asking people all day yesterday to call the Red Cross and Williamson County authorities if they knew of anybody who turned up," Cox said.

Jimmy Bitz, a justice of the peace, slowly confirmed identities throughout the night after comparing pictures and other records to those from relatives of the deceased.

As of this morning, four bodies had been identified: teenage brothers John and Michael Ruiz; Ryan Fillmore, believed to be 5; and his 44-year-old grandmother, Emma Jean Mullins, were the only names confirmed as of late yesterday.

Roughly 50 homes were demolished when the twister smashed

through the Double Creek Estates subdivision in this town 40 miles north of Austin.

Yesterday, hundreds of rescue workers combed the area trying to find people, dead or alive. They found neither.

The National Weather Service said the twister likely had a force of four on its scale of five. It was the state's worst since May 22, 1987, when 30 people died and 162 were injured in the West Texas town of Saragosa.

When the tornado alarm sounded, teacher Joan Igo left her classroom. Her husband, Larry, closed up his auto parts store. Daughter Audrey left school to join her twin brothers, John and Paul.

They all made it home ahead of the tornado, and it cost them their lives.

"They actually rushed home into danger," said the Rev. Max Johnson, pastor of the First Baptist Church.

"The house was totally demolished," Johnson said, recalling how the entire family would sing at his church.

Jarrell's warning siren sounded 10 to 12 minutes before the storm hit, but it did little good.

"It was too large to outrun and too strong to have survived unless you got away from the path," said Al Dreumont, a weather service forecaster.

Johnson had raced to his son's job at a feed mill after the two were cut off while talking on the phone just before the tornado hit.

"It turned out he was all right, but the tornado had come within yards of him," he said. "That's when I saw the total devastation."

Homes built on slabs, with no basement, are the norm here because of the area's hard limestone bedrock.

"I don't know what we're going to do," said Ronnie Tonns, 30, who fled with his mother, Lynette, and dog, Snoopy, about 10 minutes before the twister hit. "Everything is just gone."

The Jarrell survivors coped by coming together, many of them using the shelter run by the American Red Cross.

About 100 teenagers sat in a circle at the football field for a prayer meeting.

Earlier, truckload after truckload of supplies was dropped off, with volunteers and Boy Scouts distributing them.

Insurance companies and state agencies worked to assist victims.

Jarrell lies about 100 miles south of what is known as "Tornado Alley," the region from Waco northward to Dallas and on to Oklahoma and Kansas where springtime tornadoes are most likely to occur.

But violent storms in April and May are still a given here. Meteorologist Al Dreumont of the National Weather Service said Tuesday's tornado stayed on the ground a particularly long time, as much as 25 to 30 minutes.

"It's a major mess," said Billy Sharp, a ham radio operator. "I'm sure they'll be finding stuff that was scattered for a long, long time."

Information from the Washington Post is included in this report.