Tupelo: Tornadoes flattened homes and businesses, flipped trucks over on highways and bent telephone poles into 45-degree angles as they barreled through Alabama and Mississippi, part of a storm system that killed at least nine people in the South and brought the overall death toll from two days of severe weather in the country to at least 26.
Tens of thousands of customers were without power in Alabama, Kentucky, and Mississippi, and thousands more hunkered down in basements and shelters as The National Weather Service issued watches and warnings for more tornadoes throughout the night in Alabama.
Radar images showed a twister heading toward the city of Birmingham.
Weather satellites from space showed tumultuous clouds arcing across much of the South over the course of the day yesterday.
The system is the latest onslaught of severe weather a day after a half-mile-wide tornado carved a 130-kilometre path of destruction through the suburbs of Little Rock, Arkansas, killing at least 15.
Tornadoes or severe storms also killed one person each in Oklahoma and Iowa on Sunday.
Six people died in Winston County, Mississippi, including a woman who died in the day care center she owned in Louisville, county Coroner Scott Gregory told The Associated Press yesterday.
Lousville is the county seat and home to about 6,600 people.
It was unclear if any children were in the day care at the time, said William McCully, acting spokesman for the Winston County Emergency Management Agency.
Earlier yesterday, emergency officials attending a news conference with Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said seven people had been killed statewide.
State Director of Health Protection Jim Craig said officials were working with coroners to confirm the total. It was unclear if the deaths in Winston County were included in that tally.
One of the deaths involved a woman who was killed when her car either hydroplaned or was blown off a road during the storm in Verona, south of Tupelo, said Lee County Coroner Carolyn Gillentine Green.
In northern Alabama, the coroner`s office confirmed two deaths Monday in a twister that caused extensive damage west of the city of Athens, said Limestone County Emergency Director Rita White.
