OHATCHEE, Ala. — The place where one home stood was nothing but cinder blocks and a bald patch of earth. The chicken coop had evaporated, leaving behind a pile of cracked eggs and a loose rooster. Metal siding was knotted around the trunks of trees and the grass was littered with splintered wood, clothes and toys.

On Thursday, five mobile homes had been nestled on the plot of land in Ohatchee, Ala. On Friday, after a tornado tore through the stretch of rural Alabama, only one was still standing, and just barely. The extended family who lived there were struggling to comprehend the ways their lives had been upended and those of their relatives had been lost. Three members of the family were killed.

“All it takes is…,” Kalvin Bowers, 52, a relative of the family, said with a snap of his fingers. Everything was gone.

The tornado in Ohatchee, which meteorologists said had winds of between 111 and 135 miles per hour, had been one in an outbreak across the southeast, beginning on Thursday. One in Alabama carved a trail that stretched some 100 miles. Another in Georgia has shredded the historic core in the city of Newnan and the surrounding rural communities, where one person was killed. At least six people in all were killed in the storms, the authorities said.

The National Weather Service recorded 24 preliminary tornado reports on Thursday across Alabama and Georgia. Possible tornadoes were also reported in Tennessee, along with hail and heavy rainfall.

For many residents, the damage was largely physical, as the storms downed power lines, uprooted trees and leveled homes and other buildings.

The region has long been familiar with the pain and devastation wrought by tornadoes, yet the impact this time was intensified as the dangerous weather came just a week after another severe outbreak of storms pounded the Southeast.

“High-risk days are not common,” said Mark Rose, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Ala. “To have two so close together is certainly a rare event.”

Now, in a span stretching from the western exurbs of Atlanta and across Alabama, residents were staring down the arduous task of restoring their homes and rebuilding their lives. In Ohatchee, a town of just over 1,100 people about 60 miles east of Birmingham, a family had been torn apart, adding an agonizing layer on top of the uncertainty and frustration from losing their homes.

“I’m just going to take it one day at a time,” said Kevinta Turner, 43, who had not been able to sleep, his mind still clouded by the calls for help from people trapped in the rubble, including his uncle and a 13-year-old girl, both of whom survived.

Mr. Bowers’s family had gravitated toward the eight-acre property in Ohatchee, starting in 1986. Mr. Turner had come all the way from Los Angeles to join them. Before long, about 13 family members lived in the five mobile homes.

Mr. Bowers said his sister Barbara Harris, and her husband, Joe Harris, were the head of the family. They’re who people went to with their problems, and to solve disputes, he said. Now, both his sister and brother-in-law were dead, as was their daughter, Ebonique Harris, 38.

And, he said, he had to step up as a leader in the family.

“I’ve got to get these people where they need to be,” Mr. Bowers said of his relatives who survived. “I’ve got to get the others buried.”

In Newnan, a city of roughly 40,000 people southwest of Atlanta, a tornado raked through a swath of the city around midnight. The devastation became clear after sunrise on Friday: Massive old trees had uprooted and crashed through roofs, and yards and roads were a mess of roof tiles and scattered branches.

Yet amid the destruction, there were also emerging signs of a small city banding together, fitfully starting to mend what had been broken: People were walking the streets with chain saws and gas cans. Church members offered biscuits, water bottles and prayers. Neighbors were sawing through fallen limbs and carrying baskets as they collected belongings that had scattered from homes where residents surely will not be able to return for some time.

Early on Friday morning, Jonathan Dockery stepped out of his neighbor’s basement and saw a giant oak tree had crashed through his home. He almost felt lucky. The tree had flattened the front room of his house. He likely would have been trapped inside had he not woken up and checked his phone minutes before the tornado arrived.

Mr. Dockery, 35, had been watching weather apps throughout the day as storms threatened Newnan and tore across the region. He nodded off. Newnan had been quiet.

“I knew that my house was going to get hit,” he said. “You could see the weather system coming up on the radar.”

Mike Sumner, 63, a lawyer, was busy clearing the yard of his 1830 home, Buena Vista, a graceful, whitewashed two-story colonnaded home. One of its four columns had fallen, like a Grecian ruin; another had been knocked akimbo, still barely lending support to the roof above. On another side of the house, a massive oak tree had bashed against the second story, and was leaning against the home.

“But we’re lucky,” said Mr. Sumner, who has lived in the house since 1990 and raised three boys there. “The inside is pretty much intact. We’ve got a few windows up there that are out. But other than that, you know, nobody was hurt.”

Connor Crissy, 17, said he and his father heard an ominous rumbling after midnight, and went to the basement. Glass shattered all around them, and their ears popped from the change in pressure. Kirk Crissy said he wrapped his son in his arms. “I just figured if it kills him, it’ll kill me first,” he said.

Now they were alive, but still stunned.

On Friday, Connor was sitting on the roof of his apartment complex — a roof that now happened to be sitting in the yard. His street was now a traffic jam of downed power poles and work trucks. There was little to do but watch and wait.

“We’ve got to find some place to stay,” said Connor, who is studying to be a welder. “We don’t know where yet. We’re just waiting for the roads to clear up. Right now we can’t even move out of here.”

In the small Alabama town of Wellington, about 10 miles east of Ohatchee, Dorothy Couch struggled to imagine her life without her mother, Emily Wilborn, 71, who was among those killed in the storm.

Ms. Couch, 44, has nine brain tumors and has been going through cancer treatment, and she had leaned on her mother. “My mom praying is the only thing that has kept me here,” Ms. Couch said.

Last week’s severe weather had brought high winds and heavy rainfall. But it soon became clear the storm this time would be much worse. Still, her mother, who lives in a single-wide mobile home on her property, refused to join her in the storm shelter.

She described her mother as a woman of faith. Before the storm, Ms. Couch said Ms. Wilborn made a cup of black coffee with no sugar and sat down to listen to Scripture.

And after the storm passed, Ms. Couch found her mother with a Bible app open on her phone. She had been listening to Psalm 139:14 as the tornado descended on her home: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

“She said if God wanted her, he was going to find her,” Ms. Couch said. “She said her and God were going to ride it out.”

Eddie Burkhalter reported from Ohatchee, Ala., Richard Fausset from Newnan, Ga., Rick Rojas from Atlanta and Jesus Jiménez from Dallas. Tim Nail contributed reporting from Ohatchee. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

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