A strong spring storm that socked the Midwest with ice and snow made its way east, raking the South with tornadoes Thursday, with three deaths blamed on the rough weather and thousands of people without power.
Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said Thursday one person died and several people were injured after a reported tornado struck Kemper County in the far eastern part of the state.
The T-shaped system first swept across the nation’s midsection Wednesday night and pummeled portions of Missouri, where the National Weather Service said Thursday that an EF-2 tornado appears to have damaged dozens of homes in the St. Louis suburb of Hazelwood. That category of tornado generally packs winds of 113-157 mph.
The line of severe storms was trudging east to Georgia, where the world’s best golfers are playing in the Masters at Augusta National. The weather was warm and sunny on the first day of the four-day tournament but severe storms were forecast overnight.
In Missouri and neighboring Illinois, crews with the weather service were assessing whether tornadoes were to blame for other damage, meteorologist Mark Fuchs said. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency shortly after the storm swept through the eastern part of Missouri, bringing hail, up to 2 ½ inches of rain and strong winds.
Utility workers scrambled to restore power to more than 23,000 Missouri homes and businesses. One utility worker for Ameren Missouri was electrocuted while repairing damage, the company said. The company says he was taken to an area hospital but did not survive.
In the upper Midwest, thousands of homes and businesses lost power because of heavy snow, ice and wind in the past couple of days, while rain and snow raised flooding concerns in various areas of the Midwest. A suspected tornado caused damage in Arkansas.
A third death was reported in the Nebraska Pandhandle, where a woman perished Tuesday when she tried to trudge through a blinding snowstorm from her disabled car to her house a mile away.
On Wednesday, seven members of the Sullivan, Mo., municipal airport board were gathered at the airport for a meeting. A member noticed what looked like funnel clouds over the 7,000-resident town about 65 miles southwest of St. Louis. Then, a wind-blown pickup truck scooted by — without a driver. The gust was clocked at 101 mph.
Across the Mississippi River in Alton, Ill., Dave Grounds was watching TV when he heard the rain suddenly intensify, followed by winds that he said had “incredible resonance.”
“That’s when the house started shaking violently, like it was grabbed by both sides,” said Grounds, a judge for Madison County’s juvenile court. “I thought it was an earthquake, and that’s when things started collapsing.”
Two large trees — one oak and the other ash, each a century old — toppled onto one end of his house of 43 years, caving in his bedroom and crushing two of his vehicles.
At least eight homes were damaged in the St. Louis neighborhood known as the Hill, famous for its Italian heritage and restaurants. Mobile homes were blown over in parts of Franklin and Washington counties, not far from St. Louis.
Fuchs said the storm, which affected numerous states, was the result of a clash of warm and cold air — typical for spring.
On Thursday, the system moved through the Southeast, with high winds knocking over trees and power lines in rural west Alabama and eastern Mississippi. About 50 school systems in central and north Alabama sent students home early, and a few government offices and businesses closed early.
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