UPDATE (9 a.m. CT Jan. 13):
By KIM CHANDLER and JEFF MARTIN
Associated Press
SELMA, Ala. (AP) — Crews worked through the night searching for people trapped after a deadly storm system spawned tornadoes across parts of the U.S. South, killing at least seven people and causing substantial damage in the historic city of Selma, Alabama.
Six died in Autauga County, Alabama, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northeast of Selma, where a tornado cut a 20-mile (32-kilometer) long path across two rural communities, wrecking dozens of homes, said Ernie Baggett, the county’s emergency management director.
At least 12 people were injured severely enough to be taken to hospitals by emergency responders, Baggett told The Associated Press. He said crews were cutting through downed trees Thursday night to look for more people needing help.
He said about 40 homes were destroyed or seriously damaged, including several mobile homes that were launched into the air. “They weren’t just blown over. They were blown a distance.”
A more comprehensive picture of the damage would emerge Friday as they search for more victims, authorities said. The National Weather Service said late Thursday that suspected tornado damage was reported in at least 14 Alabama counties and five Georgia counties. Early Friday, tens of thousands of customers remained without power across the two states.
In Selma, a city etched in the history of the civil rights movement, the city council met on a sidewalk using lights from cellphones to declare a state of emergency.
In Georgia, a passenger died when a tree fell on a vehicle in Jackson, Butts County Coroner Lacey Prue said.
In the same county southeast of Atlanta, the storm appeared to have knocked a freight train off its tracks, officials said.
Officials in Griffin, south of Atlanta, told local news outlets that multiple people had been trapped inside an apartment complex after trees fell on it. A Hobby Lobby store lost part of its roof, and firefighters cut loose a man who had been pinned for hours under a tree that fell on his house. The city imposed a curfew from 10 p.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. Friday.
Nationwide, the weather service issued more than 40 separate tornado reports on Thursday, and Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina and North Carolina all had tornado warnings for a time. The tornado reports were not yet confirmed and some could be classified as wind damage once assessments are done.
The tornado that hit Selma cut a wide path through the downtown area, where brick buildings collapsed, oak trees were uprooted, cars were on their side and power lines were left dangling. Plumes of thick, black smoke from a fire rose over the city; whether the storm caused the blaze wasn’t immediately known.
Selma Mayor James Perkins said no fatalities have been reported, but several people were seriously injured. Officials hoped to get an aerial view of the city Friday morning.
“We have a lot of downed power lines,” he said. “There is a lot of danger on the streets.”
Mattie Moore was among Selma residents who picked up boxed meals offered by a charity downtown.
“Thank God that we’re here. It’s like something you see on TV,” Moore said of the destruction.
A city of about 18,000 people, Selma is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Montgomery, the Alabama capital. It was a flashpoint of the civil rights movement where state troopers viciously attacked Black people who marched non-violently for voting rights across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965.
Malesha McVay took video of the giant twister, which would turn black as it swept away home after home.
“It would hit a house, and black smoke would swirl up,” she said. “It was very terrifying.”
Three factors — a natural La Nina weather cycle, warming of the Gulf of Mexico likely related to climate change and a decades-long eastward shift of tornado activity — combined to make Thursday’s tornado outbreak unusual and damaging, said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University who studies tornado trends.
La Nina, a cooling of parts of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide, was a factor in making a wavy jet stream that brought a cold front through, Gensini said. But that’s not enough for a tornado outbreak. The other ingredient is moisture.
Normally the air in the Southeast is fairly dry this time of year but the dew point was twice normal, likely because of unusually warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, which is likely influenced by climate change, Gensini said. That moisture hit the cold front, adding up to killer storms.
About 22,000 customers were without power in Alabama early Friday, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide. In Georgia, about 23,000 customers remained without electricity after the storm system carved a path across a tier of counties just south of Atlanta.
School was canceled for 90,000 students in at least six Georgia counties on Friday.
In Kentucky, the weather service confirmed that an EF-1 tornado struck Mercer County and said crews were surveying damage in a handful of other counties.
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Martin reported from Woodstock, Georgia. Associated Press writers Alina Hartounian in Phoenix, Arizona; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Seth Borenstein in Denver; Rebecca Reynolds in Louisville, Kentucky; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and photographer Butch Dill in Selma, Alabama, contributed to this report.
Scott Wayman (center) examines his former rental home in the aftermath of severe weather Thursday in Prattville, Ala. A giant, swirling storm system billowing across the South spurred a tornado that shredded the walls of homes, toppled roofs and uprooted trees in Selma.
Photo/Vasha Hunt/Associated Press
EARLIER (7:23 p.m. CT Jan. 12):
By KIM CHANDLER and JEFF MARTIN
Associated Press
SELMA, Ala. — A giant, swirling storm system billowing across the South killed at least six people Thursday in central Alabama, authorities said, and spawned a tornado that shredded the walls of homes, toppled roofs and uprooted trees in Selma.
Ernie Baggett, the emergency management director in Autauga County, Alabama, told The Associated Press he could confirm six fatalities were scattered across multiple homes in the Old Kingston community. Baggett said mobile homes and conventional homes were both damaged.
“It seems to have been a couple of different houses where people were at home,” Baggett said.
He said at least 12 people were injured severely enough to be taken to hospitals by emergency responders. Baggett said he didn’t know the extent of their injuries.
Autauga County, Alabama, is 41 miles (66 kilometers) northeast of Selma.
Officials estimate that 40 to 50 homes were damaged or destroyed by storms that cut a strip across the county, Baggett said. He said crews were focused Thursday evening on cutting through downed trees to look for people who may be injured.
“Search and rescue is really more what’s going on right now,” Baggett said.
In Selma, a city etched in the history of the civil rights movement, brick buildings collapsed, cars were on their side and traffic poles were strewn about in the downtown area. Plumes of thick, black smoke rose over the city from a fire burning. It was not immediately known whether the storm caused the blaze.
A few blocks past the city’s famed Edmund Pettus Bridge, an enduring symbol of the voting rights movement, buildings were crumpled by the storm and trees blocked roadways.
Selma Mayor James Perkins said that no fatalities have been reported at this time, but first responders are continuing to assess the damage.
“People have been injured, but no fatalities,” Perkins said. “We have a lot of downed power lines. There is a lot of danger on the streets.”
A city curfew is being put into place, the mayor added.
The “large and extremely dangerous tornado” caused damage as it moved through the historic city, the National Weather Service said. There were confirmed reports of tree and structural damage in Selma and reports of damage in other counties, the agency said.
Nationwide, there were 33 separate tornado reports Thursday from the National Weather Service as of Thursday evening, with a handful of tornado warnings still in effect in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. However, the reports were not yet confirmed and some of them could later be classified as wind damage after assessments are done in coming days.
In Alabama, there is damage “all over Selma,” former state Sen. Hank Sanders said he has been told.
“A tornado has definitely damaged Selma. In fact, it hit our house, but not head-on. It blew out windows in the bedroom and in the living room. It is raining through the roof in the kitchen,” Sanders said.
Selma, a city of about 18,000 residents, is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of the Alabama capital city of Montgomery.
Selma was a flashpoint of the civil rights movement. Alabama state troopers viciously attacked Black people advocating for voting rights as they marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965. Among those beaten by law enforcement officers was John Lewis, whose skull was fractured. He went on to a long and distinguished career as a U.S. congressman.
After the tornado passed, Krishun Moore emerged from her home to the sound of children crying and screaming. She and her mother encouraged the kids to keep screaming until they found the two of them on top of the roof of a damaged apartment. She estimated the kids were about one and four years old. Both of them are OK, she said through Facebook messenger.
Malesha McVay drove parallel to the tornado with her family. She said it got less than a mile from her home before suddenly turning.
“We stopped and we prayed. We followed it and prayed,” she said. “It was a 100% God thing that it turned right before it hit my house.”
She took video of the giant twister, which would turn black as it swept away home after home.
“It would hit a house, and black smoke would swirl up,” she said. “It was very terrifying.”
The weather service had issued a tornado emergency for several counties just north of the capital city of Montgomery as the same storm system moved eastward. “This is a life-threatening situation. Take shelter immediately,” the weather service said of the reported tornado.
There were multiple tornado warnings issued Thursday in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee as the storm system moved through the region.
More than 50,000 customers were without power in Alabama, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide.
In Georgia, more than 100,000 customers were without electricity just before sunset Thursday as the storm system carved a path across a tier of counties just south of Atlanta, according to PowerOutage.us.
The storm hit in Griffin, south of Atlanta, with winds damaging a shopping area, local news outlets reported. A Hobby Lobby store partially lost its roof, and at least one car was flipped in the parking lot of a nearby Walmart.
Damage was also reported west of downtown Atlanta in Douglas County and Cobb County, with Cobb County government posting a damage report showing a crumbled cinder block wall at a warehouse in suburban Austell.
In Kentucky, the National Weather Service in Louisville confirmed that an EF-1 tornado struck Mercer County and said crews were surveying damage in a handful of other counties. There were reports of downed trees, power outages and other scattered damage from storms that moved through the state.
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Associated Press writers Alina Hartounian in Phoenix, Arizona; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Rebecca Reynolds in Louisville, Kentucky; and photographer Butch Dill in Selma, Alabama, contributed to this report.