A severe weather outbreak on Tuesday and early Wednesday morning damaged many communities across the southern United States, leaving two people dead.
The National Weather Service (NWS) issued multiple severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings from the Gulf Coast north to Indiana. Officials warned residents in the path of these storms of the potential for damaging winds, massive amounts of rain, hail, and the possibility of long-tracking tornadoes as the storms moved from Texas toward the northeast.
Matthew Elliott, a meteorologist at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, reported that a total of 73 tornado warnings and 120 severe thunderstorm warnings were issued from the afternoon of November 29 to the morning of November 30.
The NWS confirmed tornadoes on the ground in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia.
Officials in Montgomery County, Alabama, said at least two people were killed in the morning hours of November 30 when an EF-2 tornado passed through the region. It struck the Flatwood community, just north of Montgomery, knocking down trees and severely damaging residential areas and businesses, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.
Authorities said a 39-year-old woman and her eight-year-old son were killed when a tree fell and crushed their mobile home. The boy’s father was injured and taken to the hospital.
Christina Thornton, director of the Montgomery City-County Emergency Management Agency, stated that the storm caused several injuries of varying kinds across the county.
“The tornado actually happened after 3:30 a.m. (local time) this morning,” said Thornton. “We were in our Safer Spaces shelter, where we provide a safe place for our community, and we watched it unfold,” she continued.
Thornton said it appeared as though the community had been “wiped off the map.” Rescue operations are still ongoing but have been impeded by felled trees blocking the roads.
At least two tornadoes touched down in Lowndes and Choctaw counties in Georgia. Multiple homes were damaged, but no injuries have been reported.
