Tornadoes, severe storms rip across South
>> Tornadoes and severe storms tore through the Deep South, killing at least five people as strong winds splintered trees, wrecked homes and downed power lines.
Multiple twisters sprang from the “super cell” of storms that rolled over western Georgia early Friday after spawning as many as eight tornadoes in Alabama on Thursday, said John De Block, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Birmingham.
One large, dangerous tornado moved through Newnan, destroying homes there and damaging others in surrounding communities west of Atlanta, meteorologists said.
A day earlier, one tornado formed in southwest Alabama and carved up the ground for more than an hour Thursday, traveling roughly 100 miles and causing heavy damage in the city of Centreville, south of Tuscaloosa.
De Block said it dissipated in Shelby County, where another twister had already heavily damaged homes and businesses and devastated the landscape. The county is home to suburban Birmingham cities such as Pelham and Helena and the unincorporated subdivision of Eagle Point, all suffering heavy damage.
Still another of the eight suspected tornadoes that hit the state killed five people in Calhoun County.
“Five people lost their lives and for those families, it will never be the same,” Calhoun County Sheriff Matthew Wade said at briefing Thursday evening.
Coroner Pat Brown identified them Friday to Al.com as Joe Wayne Harris, 74, Barbara Harris, 69, Ebonique Harris, 28; Emily Myra Wilborn, 72, and James William Geno, 72.
One of the victims in the hard-hit town of Ohatchee in eastern Alabama, a small community of about 1,170 people, was Dwight Jennings’s neighbor. Geno went by J.W. and had been a rodeo bull rider in his youth. He could make anything out of wood, and loved to catfish, Jennings said. They had planned to go fishing this weekend; instead he spent hours searching for Geno’s dog before the animal was found alive.
Reports of tornado damage in the Newnan area began coming in shortly after midnight. One-hundredyear-old trees were toppled and power lines downed.
Stephen Brown, fire chief in the city of Newnan said during a televised morning news conference that rescue teams were methodically checking every structure and assessing the destruction. They’ve found “heavy, heavy damage” in parts of the city’s historic district, he said.
“It’ll never look the same,” Brown said. But he also complimented the resiliency of the community. “They’re out. They’re working. Family members are coming out there and they’re already on their own doing the cleanup.”
The bad weather stretched across the southern U.S., raising concerns of thunderstorms and flooding in parts of Tennessee, Kentucky and the Carolinas. Emergency responders hospitalized one person in Sumner County, Tenn., and the Nashville Fire Department posted photos on Twitter showing large trees down, damaged homes and streets blocked by debris.