De Soto, Mo. ? Tornadoes swept across the Midwest and South overnight and early Wednesday, killing two people in Illinois and battering a region still trying to recover from deadly twisters that struck over the weekend.

A junior high gymnasium in this community 35 miles southwest of St. Louis was destroyed in Tuesday night’s twister, but 25 young track athletes and their coaches were spared because they had fled the gym just in time.

“Chairs started flying. Everything started shaking. It was scary,” Travis Shores, 14, said as he visited the ruins Wednesday.

Said Grant Gannon, also 14: “I kept hearing the wind. Then there was a loud boom like a bomb went off.”

At least four tornadoes hit southern Illinois overnight, killing two people, injuring at least 20 and destroying or damaging scores of homes. In Mermet, the trailer of Mariam Houchins, 65, was wrapped around tree trunks; her body was found in a ravine. Steve Kohn, 53, was killed in nearby Grand Chain.

Brenda Crockett of Mermet had climbed out of her basement after the first tornado struck and was surveying the rubble of her house when she saw a second twister bearing down on her.

“There was nothing for me to do except lie down and grab the grass,” said Crockett, who spent Wednesday looking for family photographs and other treasures to save.

Tornadoes also damaged more than a dozen trailer homes in northeast Mississippi and Downsville, La., but no serious injuries were reported. High wind and heavy rain also hit parts of Arkansas and Alabama, where officials closed schools and some churches canceled midweek services.

In eastern Tennessee, which has been drenched by rain since Sunday, flooding forced Chattanooga residents to take emergency shelter as the Tennessee River rose toward its highest level in nearly 30 years. The Tennessee Valley Authority said some 300 homes and other structures could be flooded and damages could reach $7 million.

“We’ve been through this before,” said Liz Foster, manager of a complex that emptied 64 downstairs apartments because of the high water. “Can I cry?”

The heavy rain and wind had many in Pierce City, Mo., hit hard by Sunday’s tornadoes, fearing damaged historic buildings would simply collapse.

“This we didn’t need,” Lawrence County Sheriff Doug Seneker said of the latest stormy weather. “With all of the damaged buildings, the wind can easily knock some of them down.”

The last people listed as missing in Pierce City turned up safe Wednesday. And Gov. Bob Holden said he had directed the Missouri National Guard Adjutant General to begin talks about building an armory to replace one destroyed Sunday in Pierce City.

Kansan buried

The death toll from the weekend’s storms stood at 40 — 18 in Missouri, 15 in Tennessee and seven in Kansas. In Franklin, Kan., friends and family buried 87-year-old Josephine Maghe, one of those killed Sunday.

Some 400 people were at the United Methodist Church in nearby Arma and then gathered for graveside services at the Garden of Memories cemetery south of this community of 300.

She was remembered as one who always had a kind word and a helping hand for those who needed help.

“She was so giving to anybody and everybody who needed her help,” recalled granddaughter Danielle Fager-Maghe, who lived with her for five months before getting married last month.