David Shipley carries his dog Tater which he found under the family home, a house destroyed by a tornado, next to the tornado-battered Henryville High School. Jeremy Hogan | Herald-Times

HENRYVILLE — Residents of tornado-devastated southern Indiana and state leaders alike expressed gratitude Saturday that more lives weren’t lost as they began the slow task of cleaning up from a string of deadly twisters that roared through tiny communities the day before.

Gov. Mitch Daniels toured the damage, stopping first in hard-hit Henryville, where a high school was heavily damaged as students sought shelter inside. “To know we didn’t lose a single life here, that’s a merciful thing,” Daniels said.

The death toll remained at 14 in Indiana on Saturday, part of at least 38 people killed in five states. Four deaths were confirmed in Jefferson County, three in Scott County, two in Ripley County, four in Washington County and one in Clark County.

“We prepare and try to get people prepared as best as you can,” said Indiana State Police Sgt. Jerry Goodin at a morning news conference in Sellersburg, “but how do you prepare for the type of devastation that happened yesterday?”

National Weather Service officials said Saturday that two tornadoes — one packing 175 mph winds — hit Henryville, an area north of Louisville, Ky. The first was on the ground for 52 miles and measured about 150 yards wide. That tornado was an EF-4, the second-highest rating on the enhanced Fujita scale that measures tornadic force.

A second, smaller tornado passed through the town a short while later. Goodin said searches for the missing were slowing down as authorities received fewer reports and that the focus was expected to shift to cleanup today.

That promised to be a long ordeal in towns where many houses were reduced to splinters and businesses were obliterated. Daniels issued disaster declarations for Clark, Gibson, Harrison, Jefferson, Posey, Ripley, Scott, Shelby, Vanderburgh, Warrick and Washington counties.

Toddler sole survivor

A hospital spokeswoman says a 2-year-old girl found alive in an Indiana field is in critical condition — and is the sole survivor of her immediate family.

Cis Gruebbel, a spokeswoman for Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville, she said Saturday that the girl’s mother, father, 2-month-old sister and 3-year-old brother all died Friday when the storms devastated the area.

Melissa Richardson, a spokeswoman for the hospital in Salem, where the child was first taken, said the child’s family is from New Pekin and she was found near her home.

How to help

Donations to support Red Cross Disaster Relief can be made at www.redcross.org, or by calling (800)-733-2767 or texting the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

Contributions also may also be sent to local Red Cross chapters or to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013.

For other ways to help, go to www.fema.gov/rebuild/recover/howtohelp.

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