At least 24 people were killed when violent tornadoes ripped through Central Tennessee early Tuesday morning.

IU senior Caroline Malakelis grew up in the Nashville area, and said she first heard of the tornadoes through a group message with her friends from home.

“My first text was actually with my high school best friends and they were like, ‘Is everyone okay?’ And I was like, ‘What happened?’”

When Malakelis heard of the severity of the storm, she got in contact with her family members, who were safe. Their house was also undamaged.

However, a different part of Malakelis’s childhood was affected. Her middle school.

“My middle school is actually in East Nashville, so it sustained quite a bit of damage. It’s kind of sad to see, you know, all those memories and just, in the blink of an eye, things can change,” Malakelis said.

Classes at the middle school have been cancelled for the remainder of the week, but will have to find alternative class spaces moving forward, until the building has been repaired.

For the past week, Malakelis and her friends have been checking up on each other, making sure their families are safe and exchanging different stories.

One of Malakelis’s friends had a particularly chilling story.

“One of my friends, her dad has a business in East Nashville and he was updating us throughout the day. They had quite a bit of damage and they actually ended up finding a body that was sucked in from the outside.”

According to CNN, the tornadoes reached a strength of EF-4. The EF scale measures the speed of a tornado and the amount of damage left behind on a scale of 1 to 5, with EF-5 being the strongest.

The Nashville Fire Department reported that 48 buildings throughout the Nashville area were destroyed or collapsed as a result of the wind.

On Thursday, two days after the tornado, 18,000 were still left with no power, according to the Nashville Electric Services.

88 people were injured and 18 people died in a two mile stretch west of Cookeville alone.

Putnam County was the area that sustained the most damage.

Despite the tragedy, Malakelis says the positive takeaway from this tragedy is seeing the city of Nashville come together to help one another.

“Thankfully, the people of Nashville and the people of the state of Tennessee are very generous and giving, and it’s just great to see how quickly everyone’s coming together to be able to help out their neighbors in need. We’re called the Volunteer state for a reason, you know?”

In the event of a tornado, the CDC advises to seek shelter in the basement or an inside room on the lowest floor, avoid windows, and hide under something sturdy.

For more information on relief efforts, you can visit disasterreliefeffort.org.