At least 30 killed as tornadoes tear through United States for 3rd day
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A DANGEROUS storm system in the United States that spawned a chain of deadly tornadoes over three days flattened homes and businesses, forced frightened residents in more than half a dozen states to take cover and left tens of thousands of people in the dark yesterday.
As the storm hopscotched across the US, the overall death toll was at least 30, with 17 killed on Sunday and 13 on Monday in a band stretching from Oklahoma to Alabama. Forecasts showed the storm continuing to move east yesterday, with Georgia and Alabama residents waking to sirens, howling wind and pounding rain.
Others found their loved ones missing and their homes pulverized. In Louisville, Mississippi, firefighters picked through the remains of mobile homes, searching for three people unaccounted for after a tornado tore through. A line of 20 firefighters linked hands and waded through an area where wood-frame homes had also been badly damaged. Rescue workers stepped gingerly over downed power lines and trees that were snapped in half.
The storm system is the latest onslaught of severe weather a day after a kilometer-wide tornado carved a 50km path of destruction through the suburbs of Little Rock, Arkansas, killing at least 15. Tornadoes and severe storms also killed one person each in Oklahoma and Iowa on Sunday.
The Louisville tornado caused water damage and carved holes in the roof of a medical center, where the emergency room was evacuated on Monday.
Officials said seven people died in the Louisville area. Another person died in Mississippi when her car either hydroplaned or was blown off a road.
One victim was a woman who died in the day care center she owned in Louisville, county coroner Scott Gregory said. Authorities were returning to the center yesterday.
One seriously injured child was evacuated, said state Republican Michael Evans, who said authorities don’t think any other children were in the center during the storm.
In Tupelo, a community of about 35,000 in northeastern Mississippi, every building in a two-block area was damaged, officials on the scene said.
Fog hung over the city yesterday morning as authorities switched from a search-and-rescue mission to cleanup duties.
In Kimberly, Alabama, a suspected tornado hit before midnight on Monday, tearing the roof off a church. Yesterday morning, the roof sat in a solid piece beside the church. Across the street, the cinderblock walls from an old fishing supply store were scattered around the gravel parking lot.
Tim Armstrong, his wife and two young daughters were home when the storm struck. He said they were listening to weather reports on television and heard an all-clear for their area.
“Minutes later my mother-in-law calls, says there’s a tornado,” Armstrong said. “The power went out, and we went running to the middle of the house.”
They heard the wind roaring and glass shattering as a tree flew through their front door. The whole thing was over a minute later, he said.
In Alabama, the coroner’s office confirmed two deaths in a twister. In Tuscaloosa, officials said a university student died when he took shelter in a basement near campus and a retaining wall collapsed on him.
The threat of dangerous weather jangled nerves a day after the third anniversary of a historic outbreak of more than 60 tornadoes that killed more than 250 people across Alabama on April 27, 2011.
In southern Tennessee, two people were killed in a home when a suspected tornado hit on Monday night. The winds destroyed several other homes as well as a middle school in the county that borders Alabama.
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