Three people were confirmed dead and a dozen more injured as a powerful storm front packing suspected tornadoes smashed into buildings, downed trees and left a trail of destruction across the US south on Monday, authorities said.
One person was reported killed in a suspected tornado strike on a Louisiana home and two others were reported dead after another storm hit near a community about 90km west of the north Alabama city of Huntsville.
Lawrence County Coroner Scott Norwood in Alabama said that the two people killed were husband and wife.
Photo: AP / The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal
Authorities said that the injured people included a seven-year-old who was taken to a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama.
Authorities did not release names of the victims.
The area was filled with debris and downed trees when first responders arrived.
“It was total chaos,” Norwood told reporters. “We had to make due the best we could.”
The storms prompted numerous tornado watches and warnings on Monday.
Some cities opened shelters as a cold front collided with warmer air over northern Gulf Coast states and temperatures were expected to plunge.
The US National Weather Service said that the severe weather threat could last into yesterday.
The Louisiana death was attributed to an apparent tornado that struck a residential area in Vernon Parish.
Details were not immediately available, Deputy Police Chief Calvin Turner said, adding that authorities feared others could be hurt, as crews were still trying to reach hard-hit areas.
In nearby Alexandria, Louisiana, about 320km northwest of New Orleans, crews cleared roads and restored power late into the night, working in a chilly mist.
Children in a church school were moved to the church before the tornado ripped off the school’s roof, Alexandria Police Department spokesman Corporal Wade Bourgeois said.
Among the hardest-hit spots was the Johnny Downs Sports Complex, which Bourgeois said might have suffered “total damage.”
The complex includes five full-sized soccer fields, more than 10 smaller ones and eight baseball diamonds.
“Fortunately, we have no reports of any deaths or serious injuries,” he said of the Alexandria area.
Meteorologist Donald Jones of the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles, Louisiana, said that it appeared the twister that hit part of Alexandria also struck near the town of DeRidder on an “absolutely ridiculous” path estimated at 101km long.
“I don’t know what our records for the longest total in this area is, but that’s got to be pretty damn close to it,” Jones said.
Storm surveyors would find out whether the tornado went the entire distance along the ground or touched down in spots along the way, he said.
Three people were injured, at least one of them very seriously, by an apparent tornado that hit Amite County, Mississippi, on Monday afternoon, county emergency director Grant McCurley said.
Some houses were destroyed and others severely damaged, he said.
The number was not known on Monday night, because crews could not get to them all — downed trees tangled with power lines blocked county roads and state highways.
Four counties eastward, seven women were taken to a hospital from a heavily damaged group home in Sumrall, Mississippi.
Damage on the men’s side of the Douglas Graham Group Home was less severe than on the women’s side, Lamar County emergency management director James Smith told WDAM-TV.
That tornado cell sprang up in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, and went through Washington Parish on its way into Mississippi, said meteorologist Phil Grigsby of the National Weather Service office in Slidell, Louisiana.
The US Storm Prediction Center reported two other people sustained minor injuries from flying debris after storms moved into Mississippi and multiple trees fell atop homes and vehicles in Edwards, east of Vicksburg.
In Guntown, Mississippi, near Tupelo and about 420km north-northeast of Amite County, an apparent tornado destroyed a church and damaged dozens of homes.
Pastor Carl Estes searched through the debris of Lighthouse Baptist Church for books, photographs or any other salvageable items, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported.
The storm flattened the building, which Estes said was fortunately empty at the time.
School systems in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi dismissed students early and canceled afternoon events and activities.
Forecasters said that tornadoes, hail and winds blowing at 115kph posed the greatest threat as a cold front moved across the region in an easterly direction.
Tornadoes in December are not unusual.
Monday was the 19th anniversary of a southeastern tornado outbreak, which produced a twister that killed 11 people in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Storms on Dec. 1 last year spawned more than two dozen tornadoes in the US midwest.
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