Three people killed in Louisiana as vast US storm system brings tornadoes
A vast and volatile storm system ripping across the US killed at least three people in Louisiana, spinning up tornadoes that battered the state from north to south, including the New Orleans area. Elsewhere, the huge system hurled blizzard-like conditions at the Great Plains.
Several injuries were reported around Louisiana and there were more than 40,000 power outages statewide as of Wednesday night.
The storms barreled eastward after killing a mother and son in the northwest of the state a day earlier. One suspected tornado killed a woman on Wednesday in south-east Louisiana’s St Charles parish and another pummeled parts of New Orleans and Jefferson and St Bernard parishes, including areas badly damaged by a tornado last March.
A tornado struck New Iberia, Louisiana, slightly injuring five people and smashing windows at Iberia Medical Center, the hospital said.
Tornado threats eased in Mississippi, although some counties in Florida and Alabama remained under a severe weather threat.
The New Orleans emergency director, Collin Arnold, said business and residences suffered significant wind damage, largely on the west bank of the Mississippi. One home collapsed. Four people were injured, he said, adding: “The last word we had is that they were stable.”
Similar damage was reported nearby. “Several homes and businesses have suffered catastrophic damage,” the Jefferson parish sheriff said, from that large suburb west of New Orleans. Among the heavily damaged buildings was the sheriff’s training academy building.
In St Bernard parish – where the March tornado caused devastation – the sheriff, Jimmy Pohlman, said the latest damage covered a roughly twomile stretch. The parish president, Guy McInnis, said the damage was less than in March though numerous roofs were blown away or damaged.
Authorities in St Charles parish, west of New Orleans, said a woman was found dead after a suspected tornado struck Killona, along the Mississippi. Eight people were taken to the hospital, they said.
“She was outside the residence, so we don’t know exactly what happened,” the sheriff, Greg Champagne, said of the woman killed. “There was debris everywhere. She could have been struck. We don’t know for sure. But this was a horrific and a very violent tornado.”
About 280 miles away, in northern Louisiana, authorities found the bodies of a mother and child missing after a tornado swept away their mobile home on Tuesday in Keithville, south of Shreveport.
“You go to search a house and the house isn’t even there, so where do you search?” the governor, John Bel Edwards, told reporters, as he toured a mile-long path of destruction. He issued an emergency declaration.
The Caddo parish coroner said the body of eight-year-old Nikolus Little was found in woods and the body of his mother, Yoshiko Smith, 30, under storm debris. Casey Jones, with the sheriff’s office, said the boy’s father had gone for groceries before the storm.
“He just went to go shopping for his family, came home and the house was gone,” said Jones.
The storms battered Louisiana north to south. In Union parish, near the Arkansas line, the Farmerville mayor, John Crow, said a tornado on Tuesday night badly damaged an apartment complex where 50 families lived, also wiping out a neighboring trailer park with about 10 homes.
“It happened quick,” Crow said, saying about 30 homes were also damaged along nearby Lake D’Arbonne.
In Rankin county, Mississippi, a suspected tornado destroyed four large chicken houses, one containing 5,000 roosters, the sheriff said. Mobile homes in Sharkey county were reduced to debris.
The storm began its cross-country journey by dumping heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada. On Tuesday, thunderstorms swept through Texas. At least five people were injured in Grapevine, a Dallas suburb.
Forecasters expect the vast system to hobble the upper midwest with ice, rain and snow for days, and to move into the central Appalachians and north-east. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm watch from Wednesday night through Friday afternoon. Residents from West Virginia to Vermont were told to watch for a possible significant mix of snow, ice and sleet.