Severe Weather in South Kills 12, Injures Dozens

Deadly thunderstorms swept across the lower Mississippi Valley, flattening homes and poultry farms and ripping down power lines. At least 12 deaths were blamed on the storms, and dozens of people were injured.

The scream of warning sirens woke Roosevelt Greenwood before dawn Saturday in Madison, Miss., and he crowded with his wife and four children into a tiny hall closet.

“As soon as I closed the door to the closet, the tornado hit. It took the roof off,” said Greenwood, 33. “Where my 2-year-old son had been lying, the wall caved in on the crib.”

No one in his family was hurt, but the tornado that ripped through the town killed one person and injured at least 21 people, including a pregnant woman who was hospitalized in critical condition.

Besides the 12 storm-related deaths, University of Mississippi Medical Center spokeswoman Barbara Austin said the woman gave birth to a baby that died Saturday.

Three other people were killed early Saturday in northwestern Mississippi’s Delta region, including Hattie Robinson in the tiny town of Sledge.

“It blew [her] house from where it was sitting clean across the road,” said Sledge Mayor Lorenzo Windless.

At least half a dozen tornadoes ripped through Alabama on Saturday, killing four people and injuring 11 others, one critically.

“There’s debris everywhere,” said restaurant operator Venita Armstrong in Haleyville.

Four deaths and additional injuries were reported late Friday in Arkansas.

The severe weather was part of a line of thunderstorms that spanned the Ohio and Mississippi valleys from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico as a cold front swept through the region. The National Weather Service posted tornado warnings Saturday in Mississippi, western Kentucky and Alabama, and severe storm warnings were issued for parts of those states and Tennessee.

Storms earlier had passed through parts of Louisiana, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas.

Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove toured damaged areas of Madison, where dozens of homes were ripped from their foundations.

Resident Winston Thompson said sirens awoke him and his mother. He said eight or 10 homes on his street were blown away or extensively damaged.

“There were flashes of lightning, then the sound of explosions like a gun battle,” Thompson said. “I walked outside and I could hear people call over and over for help.”

Utilities said about 22,000 customers were without power in central and eastern Mississippi.

The storms in the Delta also ripped the roof off the Bolivar County Correctional Facility. Authorities moved 207 inmates to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.

“We had some injuries, but none were of a serious nature at all,” said Ken Jones, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.

Downed trees and power lines were spread across much of Arkansas, but authorities had not officially determined if the storms that struck late Friday included tornadoes. Homes and poultry houses were damaged or destroyed.

In southeast Arkansas, two deaths and heavy damage were reported in Wilmot, a town of about 1,500. Many people there were without electricity, said Jennifer Gordon, spokeswoman for the state Emergency Management Department.

In northwestern Arkansas, one death was reported late Friday at Hunt, in Johnson County, which may have been struck by a tornado, said weather service meteorologist John Lewis. Arkansas’ fourth weather-related death was a traffic fatality on a rain-slippery highway, the state police reported.

At least seven homes were destroyed in the Searcy area, in east-central Arkansas, 15 were damaged and three people were injured, authorities said. Power also was out in much of that area, Gordon said.

Elsewhere, high wind late Friday destroyed a house in Mount Vernon, Mo., and three people suffered minor injuries when their vehicle overturned, authorities said. Wind and hail nearly an inch in diameter also damaged buildings elsewhere in Missouri.