Triangle Briefs: Two children who were among the seven people injured early Thursday when a tornado demolished their Columbus County mobile home park remained in critical condition at UNC Hospitals on Sunday night.

Last week, when National Weather Service meteorologists spotted spinning inside a massive thunderstorm, they immediately issued a tornado warning for four Eastern North Carolina counties.

Church groups, charities and local businesses joined volunteers from the American Red Cross brought clothes, offered counseling and made lunch for the dozens displaced by the twister.

Tim and Mary Ann Mai were just the third family to move into the mobile home subdivision when it opened about eight years ago, said neighbor Charles Faulk.

Tornado survivors search debris.

O'Keon Graham Wilson and Tynesha Wilson were high-school sweethearts who met in Wilmington, according to Rufus Wilson, O'Keon's uncle.

A tornado ripped apart two dozen homes and tossed SUVs along a 1.8-mile path Thursday morning, but three families took the worst. They accounted for the eight people who were killed, their bodies left in ditches, a pond or amid the shattered remains of their houses.

When the Martinez family settled, it was for good.

Destruction at daybreak ravages half-mile swath in Columbus County. The second-deadliest tornado in state history counts two children among its dead; 19 are hospitalized. Most of the damage was to mobile homes.