At least two killed during tornado outbreak in South

Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes ripped through parts of the South between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, with one in the swarm of twisters killing at least two people in Alabama.

While authorities on Wednesday were still assessing the storms’ effects, the majority of the damage appeared to be sprawled across Alabama and Mississippi. In spots across the pair of states, residents were surveying mangled homes after storms left only their frames.

A tornado struck just north of Montgomery County in the Flatwood community, killing two people – a 39-year-old woman and her 8-year-old son, according to Christina Thornton, director of the Montgomery County Emergency Management Agency. One individual, the husband and father of the victims, was taken to the hospital for his injuries.

Thornton said several homes in the Flatwood area were damaged by fallen trees. The damage “is isolated to that area,” Thornton said. “All homes have been checked.”

The National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Ala., classified the storm as an EF-2 tornado with winds estimated at 115 mph when it touched down. The Weather Service received reports of at least 37 tornadoes, concentrated in northern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Several of the tornadoes were “large and extremely dangerous,” the agency said.

The twisters toppled trees and power lines, and several caused significant structural damage to homes and buildings across the three states. Powerful winds uprooted trees and peeled siding from homes in Mississippi and Alabama. Videos showed mobile-home debris lying scattered across lawns and major roadways. A steeple was yanked from the top of a church, and some residents had been trapped in a grocery store, the Weather Service reported.

Almost every unit in an apartment building in Eutaw, Ala., was exposed after a storm ripped its roof off. Fifteen families were displaced, according to Hodges Smith of the Greene County emergency management agency. The families were removed from their homes during the storm and placed in a temporary shelter.

“It’s absolutely looking like a small community’s been wiped off the map,” Montgomery County’s Thornton told Fox Weather on Wednesday morning, “It’s really devastating to think about when you look across the field and you know that there were homes there the day before.”

Thornton added: “It’s just so overwhelming when moments of disaster can utterly change life’s landscape.”

The Weather Service logged dozens of reports of damaging straight-line winds and large hail over a larger zone that spanned from eastern Texas to Georgia and as far north as Kentucky.

The storms also unloaded torrential rain. Some places recorded more than 5 inches, and several flash-flood warnings were issued in central Mississippi and Alabama. In Birmingham, a number of intersections were reportedly flooded early Wednesday.

According to the Weather Channel, the National Weather Service issued 141 severe thunderstorm warnings and 76 tornado warnings between Tuesday afternoon and 8 a.m. Wednesday across 10 states.

The storm outbreak, which forecasters had warned about for nearly a week, continued Wednesday morning as a line of intense storms was sweeping across southern Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. A tornado watch covered a sliver of the Florida Panhandle until 11 a.m. Central time, and the Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the area around Panama City until 9 a.m.

The storm risk was expected to wane by Wednesday afternoon as the responsible cold front pushed off the southeast coast. Gusty downpours were forecast for the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Wednesday afternoon but were not expected to be severe.

Local officials throughout the southeast reported damaged homes. In Mississippi, Choctaw County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dillion Cates told Fox Weather that the storms caused trees to fall “throughout that area” and reported “severe damage” to some homes.

“There was a house in the Sherwood community that the roof was actually lifted off of the house, twisted 180 degrees and dropped back down on the home,” Cates said.

In the northeastern Louisiana town of Caldwell Parish, mangled dresser drawers were strewn across lawns with the clothes still folded neatly inside. Video footage showed people with flashlights sifting through the rubble, gathering valuables from demolished homes. Trees that snapped in half fell to the ground and crippled homes. Entire homes were reduced to rubble.

At least three people sustained minor injuries when the tornado struck Caldwell Parish County, the parish’s Department of Homeland Security told The Washington Post.

While tornadoes are most numerous in the spring across the South and much of the Lower 48, they are not uncommon in November, which is a “second season” for severe storms. The United States averages about 65 tornadoes each November. The month began with a flurry of tornadoes in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas that was blamed for at least one death.

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Ajasa reported from New York and Timsit from London.