OLD KINGSTON, Ala. — At least seven people were killed on Thursday as severe storms and tornadoes left a trail of damage across the South, officials said.
Six of the deaths were in Autauga County, Ala., in the Appalachian foothills, the local sheriff’s office said. And in Butts County, Ga., about 50 miles southeast of Atlanta, a county official said that a 5-year-old boy had been crushed to death by a tree.
By early Friday, the tornado watches issued Thursday had expired and the threat of extreme weather across the South had passed, but tens of thousands of customers were still without power in parts of Alabama and Georgia, as power crews worked through the night and early reports of injuries and damages began to surface.
Enrique Milian, who lives in Autauga County, said in an interview that several of his relatives, including two children, had been injured by an apparent tornado on Thursday as they left their mobile home and ran toward a family car.
The two children, his five-month-old and 1-year-old nephews, were hospitalized with chest injuries and are expected to survive, Mr. Milian said, standing near a dirt road where several mobile homes — including his own and those of his two brothers — had been destroyed.
Meteorologists were tracking 45 reports of tornadoes on across the South on Thursday, mostly in Alabama, and many were likely to be confirmed by the National Weather Service, Bob Oravec, a meteorologist at the agency, said by phone that night. A few had already been confirmed by local Weather Service offices.
Thunderstorms were forecast for parts of Central and South Florida on Friday, along with some possible snow in northern Alabama. More than 500,000 people living along the border of Tennessee and North Carolina were under a winter storm warning as of 3 a.m. on the East Coast.
“A lot of the worst of the weather, it appears, is over,” Mr. Oravec said.
More than 6.8 million people across Alabama and Georgia had been under a tornado watch on Thursday, and the governors of both states declared states of emergency.
Alabama’s order applied to six counties, including Autauga, which has a population of just under 60,000 people and lies in the Appalachian foothills. In 2011, it was struck by a punishing storm system that killed three people.
Videos and images from across the South showed felled trees as well as damage to homes and other buildings, but the extent of the injuries and property damage was not immediately clear.
Gary Weaver, deputy director of Autauga County’s Emergency Management Agency, said on Thursday that there were reports of injuries and damage, including downed power lines, throughout the county. Mr. Weaver said that his office had received reports of some injuries, but that it was not clear how many people had been hurt, or how badly.
In Tallapoosa County, Ala., a trooper from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency was taken to the hospital with injuries after a tree fell and hit his car, crushing it, according to images and a statement posted on Facebook on Thursday.
Further west, in Spalding County, Ga., the sheriff’s office reported that downed trees were blocking roadways, and announced that schools and the county courthouse would be closed on Friday.
The storms also left students trapped on Thursday at four Spalding County middle schools. Students from two of the schools later made it home safely, but officials were still working to help 24 children leave the other two schools, the Griffin-Spalding County School System said on its website.
And in the county seat, Griffin, violent winds had torn apart buildings and felled trees, according to Jessica Diane Pitts, a resident. “You could hear stuff being ripped to pieces and people screaming in fear!” Ms. Pitts said in a Facebook message. “I hope I never experience something like this again!”
In Mississippi, the state’s emergency management agency shared a video on Twitter that showed a home in Monroe County that had been essentially flattened. Other houses nearby sustained roof damage, with debris littering the area.
“That home is completely destroyed,” Malary White, a spokeswoman for the agency, said on Thursday.
Several severe thunderstorm warnings were also issued in the Atlanta area, including one for the area around Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where the Weather Service warned of winds up to 60 miles per hour, quarter-size hail and a possible tornado.
And in Selma, Ala., videos and images that circulated on social media on Thursday showed damaged buildings, fallen trees and vehicles with broken windows. The Weather Service office in nearby Birmingham, Ala., said on Twitter that there had been “confirmed damage” in Selma.
The Selma mayor’s office said in a statement that the city had “received significant damage from the tornado.” It urged residents to refrain from driving and to avoid downed power lines.
At a news conference on Thursday evening, officials in Selma said they had received no reports of fatalities, but that there had been some injuries. A curfew was to be put in place from dusk to dawn across the city.
A man in Selma, Bobby Green, told an ABC affiliate station that he had survived flying debris by sheltering in his car.
“I thought it was all over for me,” he said.
Discussion about this post