The Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP)
May 09, 2008 11:03 am
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Strong winds in northwest Alabama overturned a mobile home on Thursday and an apparent tornado damaged a Mississippi shopping mall as a line of severe storms swept across the Southeast.
No injuries were reported, but forecasters warned the weather could get worse as temperatures climbed in the afternoon.
In northwest Alabama, there were no confirmed reports of tornadoes but winds gusting up to 60 mph also damaged a house and a building in a rural area, said George Grabryan, emergency management director in Lauderdale County. At least 15 Alabama school systems released students early.
Portions of northwest Alabama and a number of northeast Mississippi counties were under tornado watches or warnings until midafternoon Thursday.
Authorities received reports of fallen trees and debris across northeast Mississippi, and officials were dispatched to check out the damage at a shopping mall in Tupelo, about 160 miles northeast of Jackson. Trees tangled with power lines, crisscrossing one road near a fast-food restaurant and a grocery store.
A motel manager driving to work saw that the area had been hit by severe weather.
“There were trees down and stuff blown around on Gloster, the main street near the mall,” said Dimple Patel, who works about two miles from the Barnes Crossing Mall.
“All the lights were out and store people were hanging around outside — even people at the gas station.”
The sheriff’s office there said officers spotted a possible tornado moving in and out of the clouds, possibly containing debris. Weather officials have not yet confirmed the storm was a twister.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation said several buildings at a district office in Tupelo were damaged. The agency reported downed trees, roof damage and no electricity.
Forecasters said strong winds along the coast could generate rip currents along the beaches, but the main threat was hail, damaging winds and isolated tornadoes.
The system was expected to stall over north Alabama, giving much of the eastern part of the state a 20 percent chance of rain.
The low pressure weather system struck Oklahoma a day earlier, weather officials said.
Experts there picked through debris and damage Thursday to determine whether tornadoes touched down after severe storms moved through the state, toppling trees and knocking out power to thousands of people.
A tornado reported near the southern Oklahoma town of Paoli apparently picked up a mobile home off the ground with a woman and her son inside, said Garvin County Emergency Management Director Buck Pearson.
The woman, Cindy Ward, suffered some broken toes and was bruised, but the boy was uninjured, Pearson said.
Ward managed to get her son into an interior closet just before the storm hit the home. A family member dug them out of the wreckage, Pearson said.
“It’s pretty spooky to be sitting there relying on the TV and then your house gets picked up,” Pearson said.
As the storms hit Wednesday with thunderstorms, high winds, hail and heavy rain, Shaydestiny Johnson, 16, and her grandmother rushed into the bathroom in their suburban home in western Oklahoma County when they saw the balcony patio fall.
“You could feel the house shaking,” said Johnson, of Bethany. “Pictures were falling off the wall. I was shaking.”
The possible twister spun up over western Oklahoma County as severe storms moved through during the afternoon rush hour. At least one injury was reported when a woman broke her leg trying to get to a storm shelter in Bethany, authorities said.
About 14,000 customers lost power at the height of the storm.
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