Powerful winds, tornadoes rake U.S., killing six
3 die in Mississippi twisters; Tennessee toll 2, Arkansas 1
ATLANTA — A storm system forecasters called “particularly dangerous” killed at least six people as it swept across the country Wednesday.
Tornadoes touched down in Indiana and Mississippi, where three were killed. The springlike storms packing strong winds killed two in Tennessee.
A tree blew over onto a house in Arkansas, killing an 18-year-old woman.
Authorities in Mississippi did not have details of those dead after multiple tornadoes hit the state.
In Benton County, Miss., where two deaths occurred and at least two people were missing, search-and-rescue crews were doing a houseby-house search to make sure residents were accounted for. Police there said several homes were blown off their foundations.
One of the three killed in Mississippi was a 7-year-old boy who died in Holly Springs when the storm picked up and tossed the car he was riding in, officials said. Marshall County Coroner James Anderson said the boy’s relatives in the car were taken to a hospital.
A tornado damaged or destroyed at least 20 homes in the northwest part of the state. Clarksdale Mayor Bill Luckett said the only confirmed casualty was a dog killed by storm debris. Planes at a small airport overturned and an unknown number of people were injured. “I’m looking at some horrific damage right now,” the mayor said. “Sheet metal is wrapped around trees; there are overturned airplanes; a building is just destroyed.”
Television images showed the tornado appeared to be on the ground for more than 10 minutes. Interstate 55 was closed in both directions as the tornado approached, the Mississippi Highway Patrol said.
After an EF1 tornado struck the south Indianapolis suburb of Greenwood, television stations showed pictures of damage including part of a roof blown off a veterinary office.
The biggest threat for tornadoes was in a region of 3.7 million people in Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas and parts of Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky, according to the national Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma. The center issued a “particularly dangerous situation” alert for the first time since June 2014, when two EF4 twisters devastated a rural Nebraska town, killing two people.
About 120 miles east of the tornado, Brandi Holland, a convenience store clerk in Tupelo, Miss., said people were reminded of a tornado that damaged or destroyed more than 2,000 homes and businesses in April 2014.
“They’re opening all our tornado shelters because they say there’s an 80 percent chance of a tornado today,” Holland said.
Elsewhere, skiers on the slopes out West got a fresh taste of powder and most people in the Northeast enjoyed springlike temperatures as they finished up last-minute Christmas shopping.
“It’s too warm for me. I don’t like it. I prefer the cold in the winter, in December. Gives you more of that Christmas feel,” said Daniel Flores, a concierge from the Bronx, his light jacket flapping open as he shopped in Manhattan with his three children.
Only about half of the nation, mostly in the West, should expect the possibility of a white Christmas.
In the small coastal town of Loxley, Ala., Mandy Wilson watched the angry gray sky and told drivers to be careful as she worked a cash register at Love’s Travel Stop.
“It’s very ugly; it’s very scary,” Wilson said. “There’s an 18-wheeler turned over on I-10. There’s water standing really bad. It’s a really interesting way to spend Christmas Eve eve.”
In parts of Georgia, including Atlanta, a flood watch was posted through Friday evening as more than 4 inches of rain was expected, the National Weather Service said.
Emergency officials in Tennessee worried that powerful winds could turn holiday yard decorations into projectiles, the same way gusts can fling patio furniture in springtime storms, said Marty Clements, director of the Madison County Emergency Management Agency in Jackson, the state’s largest city between Memphis and Nashville.
“If you go through these neighborhoods, there are a lot of people very proud of what they’ve put out and they’ve got stuff everywhere — all these ornaments and deer and everything else,” Clements said. “They’re not manufactured to withstand that kind of wind speed, so they become almost like little missiles.”