Emergency workers were surveying the damage from a tornado that touched down in Mississippi on Friday night, the authorities said, as thunderstorms whipped across the state and into Alabama.
The tornado caused damage in Silver City and Rolling Fork, Miss., the National Weather Service office in Jackson said on Twitter. The agency issued rare tornado emergencies for parts of the state Friday night, indicating a life-threatening situation, along with several tornado warnings.
As midnight approached, the National Weather Service office in Memphis, Tenn., said that it was monitoring a tornado as it approached the town of Smithville, Miss. Todd Beal, a meteorologist at that office, said he was not sure if that tornado was the same one that had touched down earlier in Rolling Fork.
More than five million people in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee were under a tornado watch as of 11 p.m. local time. About 50,000 electricity customers in Mississippi and Tennessee had already lost power, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us.
So far there were no official damage assessments or reports of injuries, Malary White, the chief communications officer for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said on Friday night.
Ms. White said state search-and-rescue resources were being sent to Sharkey County, Miss.; that her agency was assessing the needs of people displaced or affected by the tornado; and that her agency would begin damage assessments in the daylight. She added that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been alerted.
“Many in the MS Delta need your prayer and God’s protection tonight,” Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi said in a statement on Twitter, adding that search and rescue teams and medical support were working in the area. “Watch weather reports and stay cautious through the night, Mississippi!”
In Rolling Fork, one of the towns hit by the tornado, Mayor Eldridge Walker told a local television station that he could not leave his house because of downed power lines. He said the garage and west side had been seriously damaged by the tornado.
“We have a situation here,” Mr. Walker told the station, WLBT-TV. He said that some people in the community had been injured, though he did not give a specific number, and asked that people continue to shelter in place while emergency responders arrived.
Fred Miller, a former mayor of Rolling Fork, said as the storm came through shortly after 8 p.m., his whole house shook, and he could hear windows being blown out and debris falling. Across the way, Mr. Miller said, it was clear that other homes and trees had been damaged, and he could see the flashing lights of police cars and emergency responders.
“A great deal of the town has been destroyed,” Mr. Miller said in an interview on Fox Weather. “All of the businesses on 61 have been completely destroyed,” he said, referring to a commercial and retail stretch of a highway in the town. “People are trapped in a couple of the eateries, and people are trying to get them out now.”
“I’ve not really heard any good news,” Mr. Miller said. “Tomorrow, we’ll look and re-evaluate and see what we have to do to clean up.”
Jerry Briggs, an emergency coordinator in nearby Warren County, confirmed in a phone interview that a tornado had hit Rolling Fork, but said he had no information about damage or casualties.
Severe weather season in the South reaches its peak during March, April and May, meteorologists said.
Earlier this month, powerful storms swept across the South, leaving at least 12 people dead and hundreds of thousands of customers without electricity. Heavy rains, severe winds and tornadoes damaged homes in at least eight states.
And at the end of February, tornadoes injured at least a dozen people in Oklahoma.
Johnny Diaz, Chris Mele and Derrick Bryson Taylor contributed reporting.