At least 10 dead in storms as tornadoes, squalls ravage south

A fast-moving storm packing a litany of hazards — tornadoes, floods, severe storms and more — raged through the southern United States on Saturday, leaving at least 10 people dead and a trail of destruction in its wake.

The deaths, in Louisiana, Texas and Alabama, included an elderly couple in northwest Louisiana who were killed when a tornado tossed their trailer home hundreds of feet and damaged more than 50 homes.

The deadly tornado was just one of a series of dangerous weather events tangled up in the storm system. Powerful winds pummelled Georgia and Tennessee, officials issued flood warnings in Mississippi and strong gusts were predicted in the Midwest. Warnings of hail and snow followed closely behind, extending from Oklahoma up through Michigan.

“This is one of the stronger systems that we’ve seen in recent years,” said Kurt Van Speybroeck, an emergency response specialist at the Southern Region Headquarters of the National Weather Service. On Saturday afternoon, the strongest part of the storm was moving over Alabama and Tennessee and headed east toward Georgia about 40 mph.

The Louisiana tornado, in Bossier Parish, was strong enough to flatten entire trailer homes, said Charlie Woodrum, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service office in Shreveport, Louisiana. The twister’s winds likely spun at up to 135 mph, he said.

Another tornado near Carrollton, Alabama, about 30 miles west of Tuscaloosa, killed three more people, said Jim Stefkovich, a meteorologist for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency.

Just north of Lubbock, Texas, a police officer and firefighter were killed by a car that hopped onto a highway median and struck them as they were assisting with two other cars that had crashed. The third car also struck a firefighter who remained in critical condition on Saturday night.

Nearly 500 miles away, in Nacogdoches County, Texas, the storm led to another person’s death, a local police dispatcher said. According to local news reports, a 44-year-old man was killed when a tree fell on his home early on Saturday. A tree also killed a man in Oil City, Louisiana, when it fell on his house early Saturday, collapsing the roof, the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

About 280,000 customers were without power across the south as of Saturday afternoon.

© 2019 New York Times News Service