2 dead after tornadoes wreak havoc in South, officials say
WETUMPKA, Ala. — Tornadoes damaged numerous homes, destroyed a fire station, briefly trapped people in a grocery store and ripped the roof off an apartment complex in Mississippi, while two people died as a tree crunched their mobile home in Alabama, authorities said Wednesday.
The National Weather Service had warned that strong twisters were possible as the storm front moved eastward from Texas. They were fueled by record high temperatures and threatened a stretch of the United States where more than 25 million people live.
A total of 73 tornado warnings and 120 severe thunderstorm warnings were issued from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning, said Matthew Elliott, a meteorologist at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
Significant tornado damage was evident in the Flatwood community north of Montgomery, Alabama, where two people were killed as a tree struck their home, said Christina Thornton, director of the Montgomery County Emergency Management Agency.
Caroline Bankston said she and Tim Wiseman were watching the news and trying to figure out where the twister was when she looked out the window and realized it was on top of them. They ran to a safer corner as the roof caved in, burying their sofa in debris.
“We just prayed, prayed, prayed, ‘Please God Please take care of us. Please,’ and he did. You can replace stuff, but you can’t replace a person,” Bankston said.
In the west Alabama town of Eutaw, large sections of the roof were missing from an apartment complex, displacing 15 families in the middle of the night, and power lines and trees were “all over the road,” Eutaw Police Chief Tommy Johnson told WBRC-TV.
A suspected tornado damaged numerous homes during the night in Hale County, Alabama, where the emergency director said more than a third of the people live in highly vulnerable mobile homes.
Two other people were injured as the storm tore apart homes in Caldwell Parish, Louisiana, Sheriff Clay Bennett told KNOE-TV.
The weather service confirmed that tornadoes hit the ground in Mississippi.
Images of the wreckage in Caledonia showed a grocery store damaged, a fire station shredded and a house toppled, but Lowndes County Emergency Management Agency Director Cindy Lawrence told WTVA-TV that everyone escaped injury.
Hail crashed against the windows of City Hall in the small town of Tchula, Mississippi, where sirens blared as the mayor and other residents took cover.
“It was hitting against the window, and you could tell that it was nice-sized balls of it,” Mayor Ann Polk said after the storm passed.
High winds downed power lines, and flooding was a hazard as more than 5 inches of rain fell within several hours in some places.
Record high temperatures in Texas and Louisiana intensified the storm front before it moved into Mississippi and Alabama, forecasters said Wednesday.