🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
After eight children from a youth ranch for the abused and neglected died during a van crash Saturday, ranch CEO Michael Smith said "words cannot explain" what he saw. The children, aged four to 17, were traveling back from a beach trip to the Gulf Shores when their van got caught in a wreck on Interstate 65 caused by Tropical Storm Claudette.
Smith, of the Tallapoosa County Girls Ranch, had been traveling back from the trip in a separate van and visited the site of the crash later on Saturday. Wayne Garlock, coroner for Butler County, said that the wreck likely occurred when vehicles hydroplaned during the storm.
The van's only survivor was Ranch Director Candice Gulley, who was pulled from the wreck by a bystander and is now in stable condition at a Montgomery hospital.
Apart from the youth ranch children, the crash also killed Gulley's two children, four ranch residents and two ranch guests, as well as a 29-year old man and his 9-month old daughter who were traveling in a separate vehicle.
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
Elsewhere, a 24-year-old man and a 3-year-old boy were killed Saturday when a tree fell on their house just outside Tuscaloosa, and a 23-year-old Fort Payne woman died after her car ran off the road into a swollen creek, authorities said.
News outlets reported that search dogs located the body of a man believed to have fallen into the water during flash flooding in Birmingham.
By Monday morning, Claudette had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph). The storm was about 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of Ocean City, Maryland, and moving east-northeast at 28 mph (45 kph), the National Hurricane Center said.
The system was expected to pass near or south of Nova Scotia before dissipating late Tuesday.
About 1 to 2 inches (3 to 5 centimeters) of rain was expected in the Carolinas before Claudette moved out to sea.
The annual trip to the beach is the highlight of the year at the ranch. It's a new experience for many of the girls, a worker said. Writing on social media ahead of the trip, the employee said the organization wanted "our girls to be able to enjoy all of the things that regular families get to do on vacation" and later posted a photo of girls standing on the beach under a blue sky looking out at the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Volunteers delivered food Monday at the ranch, on a section of a two-lane county highway lined with wooden fences painted white. Sheriff's cars and orange traffic barrels blocked the road leading to the area where girls live in homes with their house parents.
Students and community members gathered for a prayer service Sunday at Reeltown High School, the school the girls attended. One of the surviving girls, who was traveling in a separate vehicle, wept as she spoke about her "little sisters," al.com reported.
"When people hear about the ranch, they usually assume that the girls have done something wrong or bad to get there. But that's not the case," said the teen, who was not identified because she is in state custody.
"These girls have been through so much, and they were such strong, wonderful, kind family members, and it was my privilege and my honor to be their big sister," she said.
She encouraged mourners "to look at somebody and tell them you love them and hold them and squeeze them tight."
"I will never, ever in my life take life for granted because it is so precious. Love is the biggest thing," she said.
The coroner said the location of the wreck is "notorious" for hydroplaning, as the northbound highway curves down a hill to a small creek. Traffic on that stretch of I-65 is usually filled with vacationers driving to and from Gulf of Mexico beaches on summer weekends.
The National Transportation Safety Board tweeted that it was sending 10 investigators to the area Sunday.
About the writer
Zoe Strozewski is a Newsweek reporter based in New Jersey. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and global politics. Zoe ... Read more