Tornadoes flattened homes and businesses, flipped trucks over on highways and bent telephone poles to 45-degree angles as they barreled through Alabama and Mississippi on Monday, part of a storm system that killed at least 11 people in the south and brought the overall death toll from two days of severe weather in the US to at least 28.
Tens of thousands of customers were without power in Alabama, Kentucky and Mississippi, and thousands more hunkered down in basements and shelters as the US National Weather Service issued watches and warnings for more tornadoes throughout the night in Alabama.
Radar images showed a twister heading toward the city of Birmingham shortly after midnight on Monday.
Weather satellites from space showed tumultuous clouds arcing across much of the south over the course of the day on Monday.
The system is the latest onslaught of severe weather, a day after a kilometer-wide tornado carved an 130km path of destruction through the suburbs of Little Rock, Arkansas, killing at least 15 people. Tornadoes or severe storms also killed one person each in Oklahoma and Iowa on Sunday.
Six people died in Winston County, Mississippi, including a woman who died in the day-care center she owned in Louisville, county Coroner Scott Gregory said late on Monday.
Louisville is the county seat and home to about 6,600 people.
It was unclear if any children were in the day care at the time, said William McCully, acting spokesman for the Winston County Emergency Management Agency.
Earlier on Monday, emergency officials attending a news conference with Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant said seven people had been killed statewide.
State Director of Health Protection Jim Craig said officials were working with coroners to confirm the total.
It was unclear if the deaths in Winston County were included in that tally.
One of the deaths involved a woman who was killed when her car either hydroplaned or was blown off a road during the storm in Verona, south of Tupelo, Lee County Coroner Carolyn Gillentine Green said.
In Tennessee, Lincoln County Emergency Management Director Mike Hall said that two people were killed in a home in the south of the state.
He said the winds destroyed several other homes, as well as a middle school in the county that borders Alabama.
In northern Alabama, the coroner’s office confirmed two deaths on Monday in a twister that caused extensive damage west of the city of Athens, Limestone County Emergency Director Rita White said.
White said more victims could be trapped in the wreckage of damaged buildings, but rescuers could not reach some areas because of downed power lines.
Separately, Limestone Commissioner Bill Latimer said he received reports of four deaths in the county from one of his workers.
Neither the governor’s office nor state emergency officials could immediately confirm those deaths.
Numerous watches and warnings were still active in Alabama shortly before midnight on Monday, with forecasters warning that the severe weather could continue all night.
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