SELMA, Ala. Crews worked through the night searching for those stranded after a catastrophic storm unleashed tornadoes throughout the United States South sections, killing at least eight people and causing significant damage in Selma, Alabama.
Before the worst storms passed across Georgia on a track south of Atlanta, one tornado carved a 20-mile (32-kilometer) path through two rural Alabama villages.
According to Autauga County Coroner Buster Barber, searchers discovered a body after sunrise Friday while exploring an area near a home that was heavily damaged Thursday when the hurricane slammed central Alabama. Seven people have died in that part of the county, 64 kilometers northeast of Selma.
According to Butts County Coroner Lacey Prue, a passenger died in Georgia after a tree fell on a vehicle in Jackson. Officials said the storm looked to have thrown a freight train off its rails in the same area.
According to Ernie Baggett, Autauga County’s emergency management director, at least 12 individuals were seriously injured and brought to hospitals as rescuers cut through downed trees looking for more needy people.
Tornado Flings Mobile Homes Into The Air
According to him, over 40 residences were demolished or severely damaged, including numerous mobile homes that were catapulted into the air. “They weren’t just blown away. They were blown a long way.”
Authorities predicted a full picture of the destruction would emerge Friday as they search for more victims. The National Weather Service reported possible tornado damage in at least 14 Alabama counties and five Georgia counties late Thursday.
In Selma, the city council declared a state of emergency on a sidewalk using smartphone lights.
The hurricane hit Griffin, south of Atlanta, as mourners gathered at Peterson’s Funeral Home for a wake. When a large tree fell on the structure, about 20 individuals inside the building scrambled for cover in a lavatory and an office.
“We were in absolute shock when we came out,” said Sha-Meeka Peterson-Smith, the funeral home’s chief operating officer. “We heard everything, but we had no idea how horrible it was.”
Storms, Winds, And Tornadoes Wreak Havoc On The Southern States.
On Thursday, a powerful storm system churning up high winds and generating tornadoes ripped across the United States South, killing at least seven people in Georgia and Alabama. (January 13)
According to her, the uprooted tree smashed straight through the front of the business, demolishing a viewing room, a lounge, and a front office. No one was injured.
Griffin officials told local news sources that several individuals were trapped inside an apartment building after trees crashed. A Hobby Lobby store suffered roof damage, and firemen freed a man pinned for hours under a tree that had fallen on his house from 10 p.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. Friday, the city imposed a curfew.
On Thursday, the weather service got reports of more than 40 tornadoes from all over the country. Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, and North Carolina were all warned about tornadoes. Reports of tornadoes still need to be checked out, and some of the damage may turn out to be caused by wind.
Tornado Created Wide Path In Downtown Selma
The tornado that slammed into Selma carved a wide path across the downtown area, destroying brick buildings, uprooting oak trees, flipping cars, and leaving electricity lines dangling. Plumes of dense, black smoke from a fire ascended over the city; it was unclear whether the storm started the fire.
Selma’s mayor, James Perkins, says that no one has died, but that a lot of people have been seriously hurt. Friday morning, officials planned to gain an overhead glimpse of the city.
“There are a lot of downed power lines,” he explained. “The streets are really dangerous.”
Mattie Moore was among the Selma citizens who picked up boxed meals from a downtown charity.
“Thank God we’re still alive. “It’s like something out of a movie,” Moore said of the devastation.
Selma is an Alabama city with about 18,000 people. It is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Montgomery, the state capital. On March 7, 1965, state troopers severely beat Black protesters marching for voting rights across the Edmund Pettus Bridge as part of the civil rights struggle.
Storm Got Darker And Darker
Malesha McVay captured video of the massive twister, which became dark as it swept away home after home.
A natural La Nina weather cycle, warming of the Gulf of Mexico likely due to climate change, and a decades-long eastward shift in tornado activity — combined to make Thursday’s tornado outbreak unusual and damaging, according to Victor Gensini, a tornado researcher at Northern Illinois University.
La Nina, a cooling of regions of the Pacific that affects weather around the world, played a factor in creating a wavy jet stream that brought a cold front through, according to Gensini. However, this is insufficient to cause a tornado outbreak. Moisture is the other component.
The air in the Southeast is normally rather dry this time of year, but the dew point was twice the average, presumably due to exceptionally warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, which is likely influenced by climate change, according to Gensini. That moisture met the cold front, resulting in devastating storms.
School Canceled For 90,000 Children
According to PowerOutage.us, which records outages nationwide, approximately 22,000 people in Alabama were without power early Friday. After the storm system ripped a path across a tier of counties immediately south of Atlanta, approximately 23,000 people in Georgia were still without power.
On Friday, school was canceled for 90,000 kids in at least six Georgia counties.
The meteorological office in Kentucky verified that an EF-1 tornado struck Mercer County and that personnel was evaluating the damage in a few more counties.
SOURCE – (AP)
