Tornado levels homes as storm hits South

NEW ORLEANS — A suspected tornado generated by Tropical Storm Claudette demolished or badly damaged at least 50 homes in a small Alabama town just north of the Florida border.

Sheriff Heath Jackson in Escambia County said the twister “pretty much leveled” a mobile home park, toppled trees onto houses and ripped the roof off of a high school gym.

Most of the damage was done in or near the towns of Brewton and East Brewton, about 50 miles north of Pensacola, Fla.

“It kind of affected everybody,” Jackson said. “But with those mobile homes being built so close together it can take a toll on them a lot more than it can on houses that are spread apart.”

There were no immediate reports of serious injuries or deaths.

Damage from the storm was also felt in northern Florida, where winds — in some cases reaching 85 mph — overturned a tractortrailor.

The National Hurricane Center declared Claudette organized enough to qualify as a named storm at 4 a.m. Saturday, well after the storm’s center of circulation had come ashore southwest of New Orleans. By Saturday evening, it was churning northeast across Alabama with sustained winds of 35 mph.

Early Saturday, the storm dumped flooding rains north of

Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana and along the Mississippi coast, inundating streets and, in some areas, pushing water into homes. Later, the storm drenched the Florida panhandle and, well inland, a broad expanse of Alabama. The National Weather Service had warned of possible tornadoes in northern Florida and southern Alabama.

Parts of inland Mississippi and Georgia were also getting heavy rain. And even though the storm was weakening, the

National Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm watch for parts of the North Carolina coast, which could feel the effects by Sunday night. The storm is forecast to cross into the Atlantic Ocean by Monday, where it could regain tropical storm strength.

Residents of Pace, Fla., reported that a possible twister tore the roofs off two homes and damaged at least three others.