A trail of severe weather, predicted by forecasters last week, swept across many southern states in the USA yesterday (7 April 2014) and is expected to move northwards during the next few days.
Heavy rainfall, storms and tornadoes struck in several states in the south. Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi were the worst affected.
Mississippi
A young girl is believed to have been swept away by flood water in Yazoo County, north of the city of Jackson. The area had seen around 7 inches of rain fall in 24 hours. Local emergency services reported that they had found a body in connection with their search late last night.
A tornado struck in Covington County, Mississippi, at around 2am on Monday 7 April, injuring around 7 people and damaging 50 homes. The electric companies also suffered with the weather and there were reports of power outages for around 1,700 people.
Alabama
Some media are reporting that a driver has died in his vehicle after it was swept away by flood waters in Lilburn, Gwinnett County. According to the LA Times, fire-fighters there have recovered a car and the dead driver, as woman who as yet hasn’t been named, after it was swept away by an overflowing river.
Tuscaloosa County saw flooding problems and some wind damage. FOX6 News reported of some of the worst flooding in 10 years in Northport. Of particular concern was the flooding around the Amerigas plant which had left huge gas tanks floating on the flood water.
Flooding pic from Bonnie Stephens near Vance in Tuscaloosa County. pic.twitter.com/b7Pk0kW4oJ
— Richard Scott (@Richard_wvua) April 7, 2014
In Shelby County, 2 mobile home parks had to be evacuated after huge amounts of rainfall led to flooding in the Pelham area. More than 100 people had to be rescued by the emergency services who were using boats as well as trucks. Local media said that a month’s worth of rain fell overnight – around 3.87 inches (98mm) fell in 24 hours.
@spann my friend Kat's in Green Park, Pelham! pic.twitter.com/UvUr8E6zKQ
— Charity Miller (@obsessdisdwife) April 7, 2014
@weatherchannel @WeatherNation @spann Pelham kids were swimming to school today pic.twitter.com/etLwvoMw8Q
— daledo (@WilliamDaleDuke) April 7, 2014
In Jefferson County an apartment block of around 200 homes had to be evacuated after it was flooded.
There were also power outages in Alabama, where as many as 11,000 homes were left without electricity. Over 6,000 of them were in the Birmingham area.
Georgia
The west and north of the state suffered the worst of the storms and rain. Some counties were put on both flood and tornado watch. Questions marks have been placed over the start of the Master’s Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, which is set to begin in just 2 days’ time.
These latest storms come after mid Western states had suffered heavy rainfall late last week and over the weekend. Two people died in flash floods in Indiana.
