A powerful winter storm raked across the Deep South early Thursday, with high winds and flooding causing damage that killed one person, injured several others and littered at least 10 states. Rescue crews repeatedly pulled people from flooded cars, and one person was seen disappearing into a rain-swollen creek as a car sank.
The storm front peeled off roofs across a wide area of hard-hit Mississippi. It destroyed mobile homes in Alabama, caused a mudslide in Tennessee and flooded streets in communities that shoulder waterways across the Appalachian region.
A path of splintered trees and sagging power lines stretched from Louisiana into Georgia, and school districts cancelled classes as the weather rolled into the Carolinas and Virginia. Authorities in many places pleaded with motorists to avoid driving where they can’t see the pavement.
One person was killed and another was injured early Thursday as high winds destroyed two mobile homes near the town of Demopolis, Alabama, the Storm Prediction Center reported. The winds left roadsides strewn with pieces of plywood and insulation, broken trees and twisted metal. It wasn’t immediately clear whether a tornado was to blame.
Hours earlier, the weather forced rescuers to suspend their search for a vehicle that disappeared Wednesday with a person inside in north Alabama’s Buck’s Pocket State Park.
“As the car started shifting because of the water we noticed what appeared to be an arm reaching out,” witness Kirkland Follis, who called 911, told WHNT-TV. Eight agencies responded, but the vehicle quickly disappeared and the water was too dangerous for divers to search, the station reported.
Tree limbs and fences were toppled when a possible tornado hit the Birmingham suburb of Helena, officials said, and some roads and parking lots were covered by floodwaters. Downtown streets also flooded near the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. A yellow taxi was abandoned in high water early Thursday on an interstate ramp in Birmingham.
In Bell County, Kentucky, Judge-Executive Albey Brock declared a state of emergency Thursday as heavy rains washed out roads and led to water rescues and rock slides. Brock said several streets were flooded in Middlesboro and crews have had to rescue a couple of people. No injuries have been reported, he said.
As the storm rolled through Georgia, a tree crashed onto to the interstate in Dunwoody, north of Atlanta, crunching a car but causing no serious injuries, authorities said. Huge trees toppled and snapped in the state’s northwestern Gordon County, smashing a home and blowing roofs off outbuildings.
Tornado and flood watches covered large areas Thursday, from Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle eastward to Virginia. Many school districts cited the flooding and severe weather in canceling classes.
The airport in North Carolina’s largest city evacuated a control tower and advised people to shelter in place because of a tornado warning, which the National Weather Service said was in effect until noon on Thursday. Charlotte-Douglas International Airport said in a tweet that the Federal Aviation Administration evacuated the tower.
Students were told to shelter in place while tornado warnings were in effect in the Atlanta suburbs and at the University of Georgia in Athens. Children in the Lawrenceville area huddled in school hallways as the weather moved through.
More than 70,000 homes and businesses were without power in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, according to poweroutage.us.
Meanwhile, the rain was predicted to continue into Friday. More than 5 inches already fell in the Tennessee Valley region, and forecasters said more than 6 inches could fall near the Alabama-Georgia line. With two inches fallen and two more expected in southern West Virginia, McDowell County Emergency Services Deputy Director Angela Workman said overflowing waterways were already pushing high water into homes and onto roads.
Elsewhere, snow was falling, in places from the upper Midwest into New England, where a few inches was expected on the coast of Maine and up to 16 inches could fall in the New Hampshire mountains before sunny skies take hold over the weekend.
Earlier, the storm dumped four inches of snow along the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas, and caused dozens of accidents involving tractor-trailers in Oklahoma. Snow also coated a bridge over the Missouri River, where several tractor-trailers and passenger vehicles collided Wednesday near Rocheport, injuring at least one person, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
The storms also paid a violent visit to New Orleans, collapsing scaffolding at the Four Seasons Hotel construction site onto at least a dozen cars Wednesday and sending one person to a hospital. Hail pounded downtown streets and high winds shattered the glass on two revolving doors.
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Associated Press reporters Jeff Martin in Atlanta, Jill Bleed in Little Rock, Arkansas; Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri; Terry Wallace in Dallas and Sean Murphy and Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report
Topics Auto Windstorm Flood Georgia Virginia Mississippi Alabama Missouri
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