At least 16 people were killed after tornadoes began ripping through US South on Easter, destroying homes and storefronts and leaving over 1 million people without power from an intense storm system now headed towards the Mid-Atlantic.
Tornadoes and severe weather hit Central Texas early Sunday, bringing “gigantic” hail and damage, and then travelled east through Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
In Mississippi, the state’s emergency management agency said 11 people died in at least three different counties near the Louisiana border — Walthall, Lawrence and Jefferson Davis — from the weather.
Five more lost their lives in Murray County, Georgia, the fire chief Dewayne Bain told NBC News on Monday morning. The rural county, an hour outside Chattanooga, Tennessee, was hit hard, and four of the five who died were found in a local trailer park. The other fatality was brought to the emergency room before succumbing to injuries, and five more people were injured, Bain said. In Chattanooga, police deployed at least 26 teams of four to six officers to check on residents who requested emergency assistance after the storm.
The governors of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama each declared states of emergency to help recover from the damage caused by the storms, as 41 tornado were reported in the past 24 hours.
On Monday morning, severe thunderstorms capable of damaging winds, tornadoes, and hail continued in northern Florida, Virginia and the Carolinas, where two tornado watches are in place until noon. Forty million people across the Eastern seaboard are at risk for severe storms, from New Jersey to Florida as heavy rains up to New England will continue until Monday evening. More than 160 million people are under wind alerts in almost every state east of the Mississippi River.
Source: Agencies
