Storms sweep through South, leaving 5 dead in wake
JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi woman who desperately tried to direct rescuers to her sinking vehicle after it skidded into a rain-swollen creek was among five people killed in storms across the South.
Jacqueline Williams, 52, was in the process of running a newspaper delivery route when her car slid off a road into a creek in her hometown of Florence before dawn Monday, authorities said. She dialed 911 from the car as it went down, said Rankin County Coroner David Ruth.
Ruth said Williams was trying to relay her location to a dispatcher as the car settled into the swirling waters.
“She was trying to tell the dispatcher where she was, and she could actually hear the sirens,” Ruth said.
The two lost contact, and Ruth said a swift-water recovery team later found Williams’ body in the creek outside the car.
Williams’ body was eventually recovered, and authorities pulled her small vehicle out of the water about three hours later.
In the tiny Mississippi Delta town of Glendora, the mayor’s wife died Sunday when strong winds toppled a tree onto the couple’s house. Mayor Johnny B. Thomas was briefly hospitalized with injuries after his wife, Shirley, was killed.
Two other people died earlier in Louisiana, and a woman died Monday in South Carolina after storms swept through the state.
Some schools in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama canceled or delayed the start of classes Monday so students wouldn’t travel in heavy rain or on flooded streets.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards signed a statewide emergency declaration Monday before embarking on a trip to survey storm damage in two central and southern parishes.
Some of the heaviest rains fell in central Louisiana from Sunday into early Monday. C.S. Ross, a National Weather Service hydrologist in Shreveport, said nearly 8 inches of rain were reported in Grant Parish in the north-central part of the state.
The storm also brought hurricane-force winds and large hail and sparked flash flooding. Up to 6 inches of rain fell in some areas. A tornado flipped a mobile home Sunday in Breaux Bridge, La., killing a mother and her 3-yearold daughter.
A suspected tornado flipped a mobile home in Union County, S.C., killing one person, officials said. J.C. Matthews Jr., 65, was dead by the time emergency help arrived at his destroyed home in Whitmire, the county coroner’s office said Monday.