As daylight emerged through the clouds Saturday, rescuers frantically searched for survivors after a string of vicious storms obliterated entire towns and killed dozens of people throughout the South and Midwest.

The tornado outbreak, unusual for this time of year, killed at least 31 people. Saturday began with large swaths of the South still battered by heavy rain and under tornado watches -- and a real fear of the death toll rising.

Of the 31 victims, 15 were in Indiana, 12 in Kentucky, three in Ohio and one in Alabama.

Piles of debris littered land where well-built homes once stood. Tall trees bowed to the winds and lay horizontal with the land. Churches turned into shelters and thousands of people began a weekend unnerved bynature's fury.

The storms pummeled Alabama Friday, gusting across the border into Tennessee all the way to Indiana.

By early Saturday morning, the storms moved through northern Georgia; a tornado was believed to have struck north Georgia's Paulding County, damaging two elementary schools, a small local airport and an undetermined number of homes, said Ashley Henson, a sheriff's spokesman.

National Weather Service meteorologist John Gordon described the weather as crazy.

"It's just nuts right here," he said during the height of the storms.

With power out, authorities relied on thermal radar imaging, and search and rescue dogs to try to find a 9-year-old boy missing after the tornado struck, said Maj. Chuck Adams, a sheriff's department spokesman.

At St. Francis Xavier Church, which was serving as a meeting and reunion point for families in Henryville, dozens waited for news of loved ones as rescue crews combed through debris.

Amid the mounting reports of death and destruction, there was some good news.

A 2-year-old girl was found alive, alone and injured in a field in Salem, about 20 miles south of Henrysville, Adams said.