Twisters roared through the nation's heartland in the early morning darkness Wednesday, flattening entire blocks of homes in small-town Illinois and Kansas and killing at least nine people.

Winds also ripped through the country music mecca of Branson, Mo., damaging some of the city's famous theaters just days before the start of the busy tourist season.

In Harrisburg, a town of 9,000 in southern Illinois, residents sorted through piles of debris and remembered their dead while the winds still howled around them.