Lawrence County was very lucky this time. Killer tornadoes ripped through Tennessee leaving behind death and destruction, but the county, which has seen so much destruction in the past few years was spared the violent weather.
Others weren’t so lucky.

Emergency crews searched on Wednesday morning for victims who might have been overlooked after violent storms and tornadoes roared through the mid-South overnight, killing at least 48 people, authorities said.

The storms ripped apart homes and a shopping mall, and trapped residents of university dorms and a retirement home in debris.

The trail of death stretched across four states, with four people killed in Alabama, 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky, and 24 in Tennessee.

The storm system was becoming less intense as it moved east on Wednesday, CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano said, but the National Weather Service issued tornado and severe storm warnings and extreme weather still was possible.See warnings for your area

In Jackson, Tennessee, a tornado trapped college students and retirees in collapsed buildings, said Julie Oaks, a spokeswoman for the state’s Emergency Management Agency. Watch where storm tore across campus ?

At least 50 people were trapped in storm-damaged Jackson Oaks Retirement Home, Oaks said.

But the Union University campus was perhaps hardest hit.

Candra Pennington, a senior, told CNN there were 15 students in her dorm when the warning sirens went off.

“We went to look at the weather and we realized we couldn’t get the door open,” she said. “We had to get all 15 girls in the bathroom. As we were closing the bathroom door, the debris, the windows were shattering in with us, the ceiling began to fall on us. We were able to get the door shut just in time to keep ourselves safe from all of the debris that fell out into the room. Watch student describe tornado terror ?

Classes have been canceled for two weeks to allow for cleanup.

“It looks like a war zone,” said David Dockery, university president. “Cars and trucks thrown from one side of the campus to the other.”

Dockery said the women’s dorms were destroyed, along with two academic buildings. Many other school buildings received lesser damage.

Nine students remained hospitalized overnight, but there were no life-threatening injuries, according to university spokesman Tim Elsworth.

To the east, a tornado swept through the southeastern section of Memphis in Shelby County. The storms yanked the roof off a hangar at Memphis International Airport, the National Weather Service said.

FedEx, which is based in Memphis, reported damage to a portion of a roof on a firehouse, but said its daily flights were not affected.

Oaks said one person was killed at the Hickory Ridge Mall in Shelby County. “The mall infrastructure is heavily damaged,” County Emergency Preparedness Director Bob Nations Jr. said. See I-Reporter’s photos of devastation at mall ?

In rural areas of Tennessee, rescue workers went door to door Wednesday morning searching for more victims, CNN affiliate WSMV reported.

Two people were found dead outside a house that had been blown away by the storm in Castilian Springs in Sumner County, Tennessee, said Jay Austin, the county’s primary death investigator.

Elsewhere in the area, a mother was found dead in a creek bed about 50 yards from where her house stood, Austin said. Her baby was found alive 250 yards away. The child was taken to a local hospital, Austin said. The town’s post office barely survived.Watch a man relive what happened when he had no time to take shelter ?

Company officials believe a tornado hit a compressor station for the Columbia Gulf Transmission company in Hartsville, Tennessee, about 40 miles northeast of Nashville, setting off a spectacular natural gas fire. Watch flames leap hundreds of feet ?

The blaze could be seen in the night sky for miles around, with flames shooting “400, 500 feet in the air,” said Tennessee Emergency Management spokesman Donnie Smith.

The station was damaged significantly, but there were no reports of injuries or fatalities, said Columbia spokesman Kelly Merritt. “We would not have had any employees there [overnight].” The blaze was put out early Wednesday morning, he said.

The tornado cut a wide swath near the facility, flattening the home of Dara Reasonover.

“It just took the house and everything and my horses and my dog,” a shaken Reasonover said, as the glow of the fire lit the sky behind her. “I don’t know if they’re alive or dead, but we’ll make it.”

In Arkansas, the storm killed 13 people in six counties, the state Emergency Management Agency said.

In the city of Atkins, a man, woman and child in the same family were killed, county Judge Jim Ed Gibson told CNN. The storms overturned trucks and vehicles along Interstate 40, closing the highway briefly, he said.

About 30 National Guardsmen will help with the recovery effort in Atkins Wednesday morning, authorities said.

A spokeswoman for emergency management in Pope County, where Atkins is located, said crews searching for more victims on Wednesday were being hampered by sleet and snow falling on top of the debris left by the storms.

Storms also ripped through western Kentucky, killing at least three people at a mobile home park in Muhlenberg County, emergency management officials said. A state of emergency has been declared in the county and Kentucky National Guard troops have been deployed, state emergency spokesman Buddy Rogers said.

Wednesday morning, authorities in Kentucky received reports of four more deaths in their state. The new deaths in Kentucky were reported in Allen County in the south central part of the state, Rogers said.

In Alabama, the storms killed four people, officials said. Watch man whose roof disappeared as he hid behind couch ?

Brenda Morgan, deputy emergency management director in Lawrence County, said three people were killed in the Aldridge Grove community. A woman died in Jackson County during the storm, county coroner John David Jordan told CNN.

The number killed could rise as searchers comb through more damaged homes, said Lawrence County Emergency Management Director Hillard Frost. Several houses were blown from their foundations and dropped in the middle of roads, Frost said. Watch debris hanging from trees ?

Resident Roger Riddle said when he heard the tornado siren, he rounded up his children and took them to a community storm shelter.

When he emerged, he saw the twister traveling away from them and “total destruction.”

“We’ve got things tore up and the house across the road from us is completely gone,” said Riddle.

Video of the scene showed major damage to homes, trees and power lines.

In Mississippi, the director of the state’s Emergency Management Agency, Mike Womack, estimated that 20 to 30 tornadoes pounded the state in areas above the state capital of Jackson.

“We have no reported fatalities and that is extremely fortunate,” he said, given the havoc the storm caused elsewhere.