Violent Storms Cut Across South, Kill 23 : Weather: High winds, rain, tornadoes combine to leave a trail of wreckage stretching from eastern Texas to Georgia.

Violent thunderstorms surged across the South on Friday with winds topping 70 m.p.h., enough rain to wash out a bridge and deadly tornadoes that shredded mobile homes. Bad weather killed at least 23 people.

“I was in my bathroom--which is now gone--and my husband was making the bed--which is now in the street,” said Cobb County, Ga., resident Susan Lohmueller. “It just got real dark, real cloudy, and we thought we heard it hailing. I took the kids and ran to the basement. We literally slid down the basement steps.”

From late Thursday and into Friday, storms stretched from eastern Texas across Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

Three deaths were blamed on high wind in Alabama. In Arkansas, seven children and a driver died when a vehicle skidded off a dirt road made slippery by heavy rain. In Mississippi, one person was killed on a highway in blinding rain and two crewmen died when a tugboat capsized in high wind.

In South Carolina, two people were killed when their car hydroplaned on a wet road and slammed into a tractor-trailer truck near Great Falls, authorities said. Two others were killed when winds toppled a tree onto their car as they traveled along a highway near Ridgeland.

A twin-engine Cessna plane crashed into a mesa at Mesa Verde National Park south of Cortez, Colo., during a snowstorm, killing a couple and their three daughters aged 12, 8 and 3, Montezuma County officials said.

West of Atlanta in Georgia’s Cobb and Douglas counties, one twister touched down Friday morning near Austell, hitting a residential area, and another hit near downtown Douglasville. At least 15 people were injured, two critically.

“The noise was terrifying. I took the covers and I wrapped up in the covers and laid on the floor and prayed,” said Ethyl Catchings, who was home alone in her Cobb County home when the storm sent a tree into her dining room.

Douglasville Police Lt. Bill Ferguson said roofs were blown off almost all downtown buildings, several of which caught fire. Some office buildings were destroyed.

Georgia Power spokesman Barry Inman said about 23,000 people statewide were without power from the storms, 13,000 of those in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Thunderstorms packing winds up to 74 m.p.h. made two passes over central and northern Alabama before dawn, killing three people, injuring at least 20 and leaving a trail of wreckage.

The deaths occurred at Munford, Ala., 10 miles east of Talladega, where three members of one family were killed when winds tore up mobile homes. Deputy Coroner Clarence Haynes said the storm picked up the family’s mobile home behind the Munford Fire Department, tore it apart and dumped one victim’s body a quarter of a mile away.

Alabama Power Co. reported 40,000 to 50,000 customers without electricity because of downed power lines, and a company spokesman was unable to predict when service would be restored.

A second wave of storms hit the Selma area after sunrise, knocking down trees and power lines and heavily damaging mobile homes.

In Mississippi, two people were tossed around and injured when they drove across a highway bridge as it was buckling and giving way early Friday, said Claiborne County Sheriff Frank Davis. They made it across and tried to warn another motorist; he was unable to stop before his pickup fell into a swollen creek below. He was able to escape the wreckage.

In rural north-central Arkansas, a four-wheel-drive vehicle crowded with teen-agers returning from a family cookout slid off a curve on a rain-slicked dirt road and overturned in six feet of water in a ditch, officials said. Eight of the 11 people on board--the driver, 33, and seven children ranging in age from 11 to 15-- were killed.