Tuscaloosa , Alabama ( CNN ) -- Leveled buildings , fallen trees and massive piles of rubble stretched across wide swaths of the South after destructive tornadoes and severe storms tore through the region . By early Friday , the death toll from the wave of powerful storms that struck Wednesday and early Thursday was nearly 300 people in six states . In the city of Tuscaloosa alone , at least 36 people lost their lives . Officials scrambled to assess the damage as doctors treated hundreds of injured . Dazed residents wandered the streets , telling harrowing tales of devastation and survival . Employees huddled in a windowless break room at a CVS drug store in Tuscaloosa as a tornado approached and a deafening roar filled the air , store manager Michael Zutell said . A mother cradling an infant sprinted inside just before the twister hit . `` Glass is breaking . The woman with the baby is screaming . Part of the drop ceiling fell and boxes fly in , '' he said . No one inside the store was injured , Zutell said . `` It 's mind-boggling to think you walked away . '' Nurse Rachel Mulder said she and her husband rode out the storm in the bathtub of their second-floor apartment in Duncanville , Alabama . After the tornado passed , only their bathroom was standing . `` My husband was walking around , looking for survivors and called me over and said ... 'Come here , someone is dying . ' So I grabbed my first-aid kit and ran down the stairs to try and help her , '' she said . `` I tried to stop her bleeding and save her , but she was taking her last breath . '' Bill Dutton found his mother-in-law 's body hundreds of yards from the site of her Pleasant Grove , Alabama , home , which was swept away down to the foundation . `` The last thing she said on the phone , she was taking shelter in a closet , '' he said . Reba Self frantically searched for her mother after a tornado pummelled their home in Ringgold , Georgia . `` I 'm screaming for her , 'Answer me , Mom -- please , Mom , answer me . ' I did n't hear anything . It turns out she had gotten out of the house and walked around to the basement door , and she asked me if I was OK. '' Now , they 're trying to make the best of the situation . `` I 'm laughing at her because she 's in the house with a broom , sweeping . I told her , 'Mom , the house is gone , you can put the broom down , ' '' Self said . The widespread devastation in areas across the South left residents reeling Thursday . `` It looks like an atomic bomb went off in a straight line , '' said Dr. Brian Wilhite , an internist at Druid City Hospital in Tuscaloosa who tended to the wounded . The facility was overrun with hundreds of people who suffered injuries , including head injuries or lacerations , he said . `` It looked more like a Vietnam War site than a hospital , '' Wilhite said . `` I know one physician who watched two people die right in front of him . There was nothing he could do . '' A video shot from the third floor of the University of Alabama 's basketball coliseum shows a large mass sucking everything into forbidding dark clouds above . Christopher England , who recorded the video , said the tornado looked like a movie scene . `` It was unreal to see something that violent and something that massive , '' he said . Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox estimated that the destruction spanned a length of five to seven miles , and was a mile wide in some areas . The challenges facing the city were daunting . The mayor said they were short on manpower , materials and equipment . The lifelong resident of Tuscaloosa said the damage was unlike anything he had seen before . `` I do n't know how anyone survived , '' he said . CNN 's Wayne Drash , Reynolds Wolf , Mariano Castillo , Matt Cherry and Martin Savidge contributed to this report .
Nearly 300 are killed across the South , and dozens are injured in Birmingham , Alabama . Some tell harrowing tales of the tragedy . Witness : ` ` It was like an atomic bomb went off in a straight line '' ` ` It 's mind - blowing to think you walked away , '' one survivor says .