Storms sweep through South, claiming 5 lives

Rescuers just minutes late to save driver swept away in raging water

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.

Florence Police Chief Richard Thomas said the current where Williams died was fast and strong.

He said authorities got a call from a woman saying her car was being swept into the water. Authorities immediately began looking but couldn’t find her in time. Records from the county’s 911 center show the first call came at 4:35 a.m., responders were dispatched within 17 seconds and arrived at 4:42 a.m.

“It was really quick,” Thomas said.

Williams’ body was eventually recovered, and authorities pulled her small vehicle out of the water about three hours later.

Florence is a town of about 4,000 people. The chief described Williams and her family as “really good people.”

“Twenty-some-odd years ago, our two boys played baseball together,” Thomas said.

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, said town clerk Aquarius Simmons.

“She was a nice lady. Very sweet. Everybody loved her,” Simmons said of Shirley Thomas.

Two other people died earlier in Louisiana, and a woman died Monday in South Carolina after storms swept through the state.