Six killed in Alabama as severe weather sweeps the South
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A man inspect a trailer home destroyed from a tornado touching down in Mount Vernon, Alabama.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - At least six people were killed in Autauga County, Alabama, on Thursday as a storm swept through the South, damaging homes and leaving tens of thousands of customers without power in parts of Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi.
Meteorologists were tracking 45 reports of tornadoes Thursday across the South, mostly in Alabama, and many were likely to be confirmed by the National Weather Service, Mr Bob Oravec, a meteorologist at the agency, said by phone Thursday night.
A few had already been confirmed by local weather service offices.
Thunderstorms were forecast for parts of Central and South Florida on Friday, but there was no longer a threat of extreme weather across the South, Mr Oravec said, adding that all the tornado watches issued earlier in the day had expired.
“A lot of the worst of the weather, it appears, is over,” he said.
The governors of Georgia and Alabama declared states of emergency Thursday.
“We are far too familiar with devastating weather, but our people are resilient,” governor Kay Ivey of Alabama said on Twitter.
Alabama’s order applied to six counties, including Autauga, which has a population of just under 60,000 people and lies outside Montgomery in the Appalachian foothills.
In 2011, it was struck by a punishing storm system that killed three people.
Nearly 30,000 customers in Alabama and more than 56,000 in Georgia were without power late Thursday evening, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. It was unclear whether all of those outages were the result of the severe weather.
Utility crews were already working to repair damage Thursday night along the storm’s path.
One from PowerSouth Energy Cooperative was dispatched from Andalusia, Alabama, to assess damage to downed power lines and a substation that serves residents of Autauga County.
Several tornado warnings had been issued earlier Thursday across portions of Georgia and Alabama, as videos and images showed felled trees as well as damage to homes and other buildings across the South.
Mr Gary Weaver, deputy director of the Autauga County Emergency Management Agency, said that there were reports of injuries and damage, including felled power lines, throughout the county.
Mr Weaver said that his office had received reports of some injuries, but that it was not clear how many people had been hurt, or how badly.
“We don’t even know the extent of it yet,” Mr Weaver said of the damage.
A trooper from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency was taken to the hospital with injuries after a tree fell and hit his car, crushing it, according to images and a statement posted by the agency on Facebook.
In Spalding County, Georgia, about 40 miles (64km) south of Atlanta, the sheriff’s office said there were “massive amounts” of trees down, blocking roadways, and it announced that schools and the county courthouse would be closed Friday.
“Please pray for our community in the coming days as we recover,” the sheriff’s office said in a post on Facebook.
In the county seat, Griffin, violent winds had torn apart buildings and felled trees, according to Ms Jessica Diane Pitts, a resident.
“You could hear stuff being ripped to pieces and people screaming in fear!” Ms Pitts said in a Facebook message. “I hope I never experience something like this again!”
In Mississippi, the state’s emergency management agency shared a video on Twitter that showed a home in Monroe County that had been essentially flattened. Other houses nearby had sustained roof damage, with debris littering the area.
“That home is completely destroyed,” Ms Malary White, a spokesperson for the agency, said Thursday.
Several severe thunderstorm warnings were issued in the Atlanta area, including one for the area around Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where the weather service warned of winds up to 60 mph (97kmh), quarter-size hail and a possible tornado.
The airport was under a ground stop Thursday afternoon because of thunderstorms in the area, according to the Air Traffic Control System Command Centre.
In Selma, Alabama, videos and images that circulated on social media Thursday showed damaged buildings, fallen trees and vehicles with broken windows.
The weather service office in nearby Birmingham, Alabama, said on Twitter that there had been “confirmed damage” in Selma.
Ms Altharis Threatt carries things out of her daughter-in-law's tornado ravaged trailer home in Mount Vernon, Alabama.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
The Selma mayor’s office said in a statement that the city had “received significant damage from the tornado.”
It urged residents to refrain from driving and to avoid downed power lines.
At a news conference Thursday evening, officials in Selma said that they had received no reports of fatalities, but that there were some injuries.
Employees with the area power company walk past downed power lines near an overturned trailer home after a tornado touched down in Mount Vernon, Alabama.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
A curfew was to be put in place from dusk to dawn across the city.
“This is a sad day in Selma and Dallas County,” Mr Jimmy Nunn, a Dallas County probate judge said at the news conference. “Please stay at home and let the emergency crews do what they need to do.”
A man in Selma, Mr Bobby Green, told an ABC affiliate station that he had survived flying debris by sheltering in his car. “I thought it was all over for me,” he said. NYTIMES
