Drought, floods, fire and tornadoes plague the Southern U.S.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Apparent tornadoes that dropped out of the night sky killed five people in two states and injured at least a dozen more early Wednesday, adding to a seemingly biblical onslaught of drought, flood and fire plaguing the South.

The storms tore through just as firefighters began to get control of wildfires that killed seven and wiped out more than 150 homes and businesses around the resort town of Gatlinburg, Tenn. In Alabama, the weather system dumped more than 2 inches of rain in areas that had been parched by months of choking drought.

High winds damaged homes, splintered barns and toppled trees in parts of Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama. Tombstones were even knocked over in the cemetery behind the badly damaged Rosalie Baptist Church, near where three people died in northeastern Alabama.

“It looks like the rapture happened up there,” said church member Steve Hall, referring to the end-times belief of many Christians.

“Are we thinking the Lord is trying to get our attention?” said the pastor, Roger Little.

The National Weather Service was assessing damage from multiple possible tornadoes across the region. A twister was confirmed on the ground a few miles from Atlanta on Wednesday, but there were no immediate damage reports as the vast storm system sent sheets of rain across that city.

Three people were killed and one person critically injured in a mobile home after an apparent twister hit tiny Rosalie, about 115 miles northeast of Birmingham, said Jackson County Chief Deputy Rocky Harnen.

A suspected tornado was responsible for the death of a husband and wife in southern Tennessee’s Polk County, while an unknown number of others were injured, said Tennessee Emergency Management Agency spokesman Dean Flener. No details were immediately available.

Shirley Knight, whose family owns a small propane business in Rosalie, said the storm crashed in on them in the middle of the night. Daybreak revealed mangled sheets of metal, insulation and a ladder hanging in trees.

“We had a plaza, a service station and several buildings connected together, and it’s all gone,” said Knight, adding that the storm also destroyed a church and damaged buildings at a nearby Christmas tree farm.

The same storm apparently hit a closed day care center in the community of Ider, injuring seven people, including three children who had left their mobile home to seek shelter, said Anthony Clifton, DeKalb County emergency management director.