Tornadoes touch down in southern Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS — Tornadoes touched down in southern Louisiana on Tuesday, wiping houses from their foundations and downing power lines as a line of severe weather moved across the region.

At least three tornadoes were confirmed — one in the eastern part of New Orleans, another near the town of Donaldsonville and another in the town of Killian, said Danielle Manning, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, quoting the Weather Service, said at least 25 people were injured.

Local media showed images of some severely damaged buildings in eastern New Orleans with power lines strewn across the road.

At least seven homes were been damaged, two of them destroyed, in Livingston Parish, northwest of New Orleans, said Brandi Janes, deputy emergency preparedness director.

Janes said emergency workers were removing trees from roadways and helping the Red Cross to get help to damaged areas.

The tornadoes were part of a wall of bad weather moving across the Deep South that lit up radar monitors and prompted multiple tornado warnings from Louisiana to Alabama. The storms brought brought hail and high winds, as well as twisters, to the New Orleans area.

One of the warnings described a “large, extremely dangerous and potentially deadly” twister south of Hammond, La.

The national Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said 2.7 million people in parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were be at the highest risk of severe weather Tuesday. In Louisiana, tornado watches covered New Orleans and Baton Rouge. In Mississippi, a tornado watch covered the southern half of the state.

GETTY IMAGES A man stands in his business after a tornado ripped off his roof Tuesday in New Orleans. According to the National Weather Service, the tornado injured 25 people.

GETTY IMAGES Cars are covered with bricks after a tornado touched down along Chef Menture Avenue on Tuesday in New Orleans. Three tornadoes were confirmed.