At least 10 people were killed when large and damaging tornadoes swept through southeastern Alabama on Sunday, authorities told NBC affiliate WSFA of Montgomery.
The deaths were in Lee County, on the border with Georgia, the station reported, citing the county sheriff’s office. No details were immediately available, but the Lee County Emergency Management Agency, or EMA, said the worst of the damage was near the town of Beauregard, where it said it had confirmed two deaths.
“It’s a widespread storm,” Brian Hastings, director of the Alabama Management Agency, said in an interview with WSFA, who said state EMA and transportation officials were already in Lee County to respond.
“We have historic flooding to the north and historic flooding on the Tombigbee [River], and now this storm system that just went through, and now we’re getting reports of significant damage” in several neighboring counties, Hastings said.
The tornadoes touched down amid a severe weather outbreak across the Southeast, according to the National Weather Service. More than 15,000 customers were without power early Sunday evening in Alabama, utility companies reported, while Georgia utilities reported almost 30,000 without power, most of them in the southern and western parts of the state.
The threat of severe weather was expected to continue until late Sunday as the National Weather Service issued tornado watches for parts of eastern Georgia, including Augusta, Athens and Savannah, and the cities of Charleston and Columbia in South Carolina until 11 p.m.
SOURCE: Janelle Griffith
NBC News
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