Deadly storm system scatters damage across the South

Six people were killed in Mississippi.

Severe weather possibilities include isolated severe storms, straight-line winds and large hail. A storm system forecasters called “particularly dangerous” killed multiple people as it swept across the cou…

He says it went from the Mississippi River to the northern part of the state including Holly Springs and eventually crossed the border of southwest Tennessee.

Johnson opened the door to what had been a bedroom and looked past his disheveled belongings to clusters of broken trees in the backyard.

“There are some houses that were blown away”, said May Wednesday, who runs the Como Inn.

“This right here is a mess, but I can’t complain because we’re blessed”, he said.

Luckily, no one was injured.

The spring-like storms mixed with unseasonably warm weather made the ideal recipe for destruction.

Emergency officials in Tennessee anxious that powerful winds could turn holiday yard decorations into projectiles, the same way gusts can fling patio furniture in springtime storms, said Marty Clements, director of the Madison County Emergency Management Agency in Jackson, the state’s largest city between Memphis and Nashville.

Mississippi’s Interstate 55 was closed in both directions as the tornado approached, the state’s Highway Patrol said.

The storm downed trees and power lines throughout the county and authorities warned people to stay off the roads as cleanup continues.

In Linden, Tennessee, Chris Shupiery wore a Santa hat as he cut fallen trees with a chain saw not far from a home in which two people died in the storm.

No tornado warning is expected for Montgomery, however, Garrison said.

Residents took stock Thursday after fierce storms that killed at least seven people, injured dozens and destroyed cars, homes and businesses across the U.S. South.

Almost 70 million people were forecast to be in the path of the storms Wednesday (Dec 23) night, ABC said, with the number of dead and injured expected to rise.

Clarksdale Mayor Bill Luckett said the only confirmed casualty was a dog killed by storm debris, but as many as 20 homes may have been hit Wednesday. “Sheet metal is wrapped around trees; there are overturned airplanes; a building is just destroyed”.

The deadly spring-like storms killed three in MS, two others in Tennessee and one in Arkansas before the worst passed Wednesday night.

“I laid down on the ground, and here come the tornado”, Meeks told CNN affiliate WTVA. “I told them to leave because if I was there as a storm chaser, it wasn’t safe”, he said.

Officials said the two deaths – one male and one female – occurred in Perry County.

An 18-year-old woman in Arkansas died Wednesday when a tree fell through her roof. Rescuers pulled the toddler from the home and took the child to the hospital.

Garrison said Montgomerians should keep an umbrella handy until a few days after Christmas.

A severe weather could develop as early as Tuesday evening, according to the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.