Tornadoes kill 11 as storm moves across South
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TUPELO, Miss. (AP) -- A dangerous storm system that spawned a
chain of deadly tornadoes over three days flattened homes and
businesses, forced frightened residents in more than half a dozen states
to take cover and left tens of thousands in the dark Tuesday morning.
As
the storm hopscotched across a large swatch of the U.S., the overall
death toll was at least 28, with 11 killed in the South on Monday and 17
in the central U.S. on Sunday.
On Tuesday
morning, many woke to sirens, tornado warnings, damaged property and
downed trees. Forecasts showed Georgia as the next likely target, with
89 counties under a tornado watch until 11 a.m. Alabama, Mississippi and
Tennessee were hit with the brunt of the storm Monday.
In
Mississippi, Republican state Sen. Giles Ward huddled in a bathroom
with his wife, four other family members and their dog Monday as a
tornado destroyed his two-story brick house and flipped his son-in-law's
SUV upside down onto the patio in Louisville.
"For about 30 seconds, it was unbelievable," Ward said. "It's about as awful as anything we've gone through."
The
dangerous weather jangled nerves a day after the three-year anniversary
of a historic outbreak of more than 60 tornadoes that killed more than
250 people across Alabama on April 27, 2011.
The
storm even sent staff at a TV news station running for cover. NBC
affiliate WTVA-TV chief meteorologist Matt Laubhan in Tupelo, Miss., was
reporting live on the weather around 3 p.m. when he realized the
twister was coming close enough that maybe he and his staff should
abandon the television studio.
"This is a
tornado ripping through the city of Tupelo as we speak. And this could
be deadly," he said in a video widely tweeted and broadcast on YouTube.
Moments later he adds, "A damaging tornado. On the ground. Right now."
The
video then shows Laubhan peeking in from the side to see if he is still
live on the air before yelling to staff off-camera to get down in the
basement. "Basement, now!" he yells, before disappearing off camera
himself.
Later, the station tweeted, "We are safe here."
Weather satellites showed tumultuous clouds arcing across much of the South over the course of the day Monday.
The
system is the latest onslaught of severe weather a day after a
half-mile-wide tornado carved an 80-mile path of destruction through the
suburbs of Little Rock, Ark., killing at least 15. Tornadoes or severe
storms also killed one person each in Oklahoma and Iowa on Sunday.
Six
people died in Winston County, Miss., on Monday, including a woman who
perished in the day care center she owned in Louisville, county Coroner
Scott Gregory told The Associated Press late Monday. Louisville is the
county seat and home to about 6,600 people.
It
was unclear if any children were in the day care center at the time,
said William McCully, acting spokesman for the Winston County Emergency
Management Agency.
Earlier Monday, emergency
officials attending a news conference with Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant
said seven people had been killed statewide. State Director of Health
Protection Jim Craig said officials were working with coroners to
confirm the total. It was unclear if the deaths in Winston County were
included in that tally.
In southern Tennessee,
two people were killed in a home when a suspected tornado hit Monday
night, Lincoln County Emergency Management Director Mike Hall said. The
winds destroyed several other homes as well as a middle school in the
county that borders Alabama, Hall said.
Along
Mississippi Highway 397 on the eastern edge of Louisville early Tuesday,
firefighters could be seen picking through the remains of an
unidentified number of pulverized mobile homes. Lt. Brian Arnett of the
Starkville Fire Department said they were searching for three people who
were unaccounted for.
About 100 yards away, 20 firefighters linked hands and waded through an area where woodframe homes had been heavily damaged.
Trees
in Louisville had been snapped in half and stripped of their branches,
while sheet metal had twisted itself around road signs and tree trunks.
Rescue workers stepped gingerly over downed power lines.
The
tornado in Louisville also caused water damage and carved holes in the
roof of the Winston Medical Center, according to an Associated Press
reporter at the center. There were about 15 patients in hospital rooms
and eight or nine in the emergency room, where evacuations were
underway.
"We thought we were going to be OK
then a guy came in and said, `It's here right now,'" said Dr. Michael
Henry, head of the emergency room. "Then boom ... it blew through."
One
of the deaths in Mississippi involved a woman who was killed when her
car either hydroplaned or was blown off a road during the storm in
Verona, south of Tupelo, said Lee County Coroner Carolyn Gillentine
Green.
In northern Alabama, the coroner's
office confirmed two deaths Monday in a twister that caused extensive
damage west of the city of Athens, said Limestone County Emergency
Director Rita White. White said more victims could be trapped in the
wreckage of damaged buildings, but rescuers could not reach some areas
because of downed power lines.
Separately,
Limestone Commissioner Bill Latimer said he received reports of four
deaths in the county from one of his workers. Neither the governor's
office nor state emergency officials could immediately confirm those
deaths.
Numerous watches and warnings were
still active in Alabama, with forecasters warning the severe weather
could continue all night.
In Tupelo, Miss., a
community of about 35,000 in northeastern Mississippi, every building in
a two-block area south of U.S. Highway 78 suffered damage, officials
told a reporter on the scene. Some buildings had their roofs sheared
off, while power lines had been knocked down completely or bent at
45-degree angles. Road crews were using heavy machinery to clear off
other streets.
The Northeast Mississippi
Medical Center in Tupelo had received 30 patients as of Monday night,
four of whom were being admitted with non-life-threatening injuries,
said center spokeswoman Deborah Pugh. Pugh said the other 26 patients
were treated for minor injuries and released.
Bryant
declared a state of emergency Monday in advance of the storms, which
sent emergency officials rushing to put plans in place.
With
the wind howling outside and rain blowing sideways, Monica Foster rode
out a tornado warning with her two daughters, ages 10 and 12, inside a
gas station near Fayette, Ala. One of the girls cried as the three
huddled with a station employee in a storage area beside a walk-in
cooler.
Foster, who was returning home to Lynn
on rural roads after a funeral in Tuscaloosa, said she typically would
have kept driving through the deluge.
"I wouldn't have pulled in if I didn't have the two girls," she said.
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