Hundreds of homes destroyed, power disrupted across States
Severe weather has swept across the southern parts of the U.S., killing at least 19 people and damaging hundreds of homes from Louisiana into the Appalachian Mountains. Many people spent part of the night on Monday sheltering in basements, closets and bathroom tubs as sirens wailed to warn of possible tornadoes.
Eleven people were killed in Mississippi, and six more died in northwest Georgia. Two other bodies were pulled from damaged homes in Arkansas and South Carolina.
The storms blew onward through the night, causing flooding and mudslides in mountainous areas, and knocking out electricity for about 7,50,000 customers in a 10-State swath ranging from Texas to Georgia up to West Virginia, according to poweroutages.us.
In Alabama, where Governor Kay Ivey suspended social distancing rules related to the pandemic because of the weather threat, people wearing protective masks huddled closely together in a storm shelter.
A suspected twister lifted a house, mostly intact, and deposited it in the middle of a road in central Georgia.
The National Weather Service tallied hundreds of reports of trees down, including many that punctured roofs and downed power lines. Meteorologists warned the mid-Atlantic States to prepare for potential tornadoes on Monday.
In Arkansas, one person was killed when a tree fell on a home in White Hall. In South Carolina, a person was found dead in a collapsed building near Seneca.