Flooding, hail, tornadoes threaten Gulf Coast region
Potent storms lashed the southern United States with heavy rain and wind on Monday, flooding roadways, damaging buildings and knocking out power across the Gulf Coast region, where some communities were still reeling from recent deadly storms.
Nearly 13 million people from southcentral Texas to the Florida Panhandle were under an enhanced risk of severe weather threats, including flash floods, hail, high winds and possible tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center. San Antonio and Austin in Texas, Baton Rouge in Louisiana, Mobile in Alabama, and Tallahassee in Florida were among the cities most at risk of dangerous conditions, the weather service said.
By the afternoon, there were reports of flooding throughout eastern Texas, southern Alabama and southwestern Florida, where 2 to 3 inches of rain had fallen, the weather service said. Officials closed roads and urged people to be mindful of rising water levels. Meanwhile, meteorologists in Santa Rosa County, Florida, recorded wind speeds up to 60 mph.
In Jackson, Mississippi, the strong winds uprooted trees and snapped power poles, knocking out power to thousands of homes and businesses. Monkeia Brown-Rankin’s home was destroyed by a tree that fell from her neighbor’s yard and crashed through her roof early Monday. No one was seriously injured, though the tree came in above where her husband slept as well as her daughter’s room. The family’s 5month-old dog, Creed, made it out safely after part of the ceiling came down on his crate.
“We’re blessed,” Brown-Rankin told the Clarion Ledger, part of the USA TODAY Network. “We’ll be OK.”
Tens of thousands of people across the Gulf Coast were without power. In Florida, more than 30,000 were without power, with the majority of outages reported in Tallahassee. Across Mississippi and southwestern Alabama, over 40,000 outages were reported.
GAUNTT/CLARION LEDGER
The fierce weather conditions come on the heels of several weeks of devastating storms in the region. Earlier this month, storms triggered flash floods across southeastern Texas, leading to the death of a 4-year-old boy and hundreds of rescues. Up to 20 inches of rain had fallen in eastern Texas since the start of the month, according to AccuWeather.
Last week, Gulf Coast states were pummeled by powerful storms that spun up tornadoes, dropped tennisball-sized hail and flooded parts of the region. Tallahassee had its most storm damage in years after a trio of tornadoes tore through the state capital, uprooting trees, damaging buildings and claiming the life of a 47-year-old woman. Several injuries in Alabama were tied to tornadoes that ripped across the state last week, including one with winds as high as 140 mph.
“This amount of rain alone is enough to trigger new small stream and low-lying area flooding and reverse recession along the secondary rivers,” said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski. “And, with additional rounds of rain coming this week and next weekend, the situation could get very serious.”
Contributing: Barbara Gauntt, Clarion Ledger