At least one dead in Florida as storms pummel South

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Powerful storms packing hurricane-force winds killed at least one woman Friday in Florida as a week of deadly severe weather continued in the South, where uprooted trees crashed onto homes and knocked out electricity to thousands in several states.

City officials in Tallahassee said wind gusts of 80 to 100 mph, speeds that exceed hurricane intensity, were reported in Florida’s capital city. Images posted on social media showed mangled metal and other debris from damaged buildings littering some areas.

A statement on the Tallahassee government’s website said crews were scrambling to repair 100 broken power poles while half the homes and businesses were left without electricity in a city of 200,000 people. It said the National Weather Service was assessing paths of three potential tornadoes.

The sheriff ’s office for Leon County, which includes Tallahassee, said in a Facebook post Friday that a woman was killed when a tree fell onto her family’s home.

Florida Gov. Ron Desantis said Friday that the state Division of Emergency Management was working with local officials to “do everything possible to return life to normalcy for our residents as quickly as possible.”

The woman killed in Florida was at least the fourth death caused by severe weather in the Southeast this week. Storms were blamed for killing two people in Tennessee on Wednesday, when another storm death was reported in North Carolina.

Nearly 230,000 homes and businesses from Mississippi to North Carolina were blacked out Friday afternoon, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us. Most of those outages were in Florida, where lights and air conditioning were out for nearly 160,000 customers.