Dozens killed as tornados tear through southern US

Barineau said 15 people were hurt and 600 structures were damaged. They said the heaviest amounts would be over the Ouachita and Ozark mountain regions where at least 10 inches of rain is possible.

A spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said 54 people were injured in the state and more than 400 homes were damaged.

“I do know that they are going house to house and going through the apartments looking for people”, he said.

Rowlett is about 20 miles northeast of Dallas.

Among the dead was a seven-year-old boy killed when a storm picked up and tossed the auto he was travelling in, fire chief Kenny Holbrook told reporters in the town of Holly Springs.

“By Sunday morning, the snow, sleet and freezing rain will expand northeast across the southern Plains”, the NWS said.

City crews clean up the damage caused by a tornado in a neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama on December 26, 2015.

Three others died in Collin County, police said.

Three other deaths were reported in the Dallas metro area, the nation’s fourth most populous, with about 7 million people.

Several vehicles plunged as far as 17 feet from a bridge in the area, Garland Police spokesman Mike Hatfield said.

“As of right now, we are still in the search and rescue mode”. In a statement, Flynn said preliminary damage estimates showed 241 homes were destroyed or severely damaged. Weather officials said there were reports of debris falling from the sky onto a highway in nearby DeSoto.

The emergency manager of Ellis county south of Dallas, Stephanie Parker, posted on twitter: “We have destroyed and damaged homes”.

The damage stretched over a 40-mile area from south of Dallas to north-east of the city. “Next thing you know, I got a skylight in my kitchen”.

It was unclear how many tornadoes touched down Saturday, though witnesses reported seeing twisters in multiple communities throughout the evening. Details of their deaths were not immediately known.

LM Otero/AP People run for safety as weather sirens sound during a severe storm passing over downtown Dallas on Saturday.

The number of tornadoes and the full extent of their damage will not become clear until daylight on Sunday, National Weather Service meteorologist Anthony Bain told the Associated Press. Citizens photos have captured powerful tornados taking place all around the Dallas area.

The accident was one of 204 that happened on snow-covered roads Saturday, she said. Thousands in the area were placed under flash flood and tornado warnings. He says the levees are expected to withstand the river crest. The city flooded again in 1990 when rising waters overwhelmed levees and again in 1998 when a levee failed under pressure from flood waters.

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant and Georgia counterpart Nathan Deal also declared states of emergency in counties affected by the weather.

Mississippi’s death toll from this week’s storms has climbed to 10. Several more days of rain also were in the forecast for the state. Late on Saturday, one death was reported in Alabama.