Lee's remnants spawn Ga. twisters, drown Miss. man
ATLANTA - September 5, 2011
In Mississippi, a man was swept away by floodwaters after trying
to cross a swollen creek, the first death caused by flooding or
winds from Lee. The system was sweeping through Alabama and pushing
into Tennessee and Georgia by the afternoon.
Suspected twisters ripped off siding and shingles and sent trees
crashing through roofs in Cherokee County, about 30 miles north of
Atlanta. The Georgia Emergency Management Agency said about 100
homes were damaged there. One man was taken to the hospital with
superficial injuries after he was hit by flying debris.
Mickey Swims and his wife hid in the basement of their house in
Woodstock as an apparent tornado passed.
"I heard it and saw the trees go around and around," Swims
said. "I knew when I heard it that if it touched down, it was
going to be bad."
Swims owns the Dixie Speedway, where he estimated the storm
caused $500,000 worth of damage. That includes about 2,000 feet of
chain-link fence uprooted from its concrete base, walls blown out
of a bathroom and concession stands and tractor-trailer trucks
turned into mangled messes.
In other parts of the state, six families were evacuated from a
Catoosa County apartment building because of flooding, while slick
roads caused an 18-car pileup in Monroe County, said agency
spokeswoman Lisa Janak. No one was injured in those cases.
"Tropical Storm Lee really made a mess in Georgia," she said.
In areas of Louisiana and Mississippi that took the brunt of the
storm over the weekend, at least 16,000 people remained without
power as of Monday afternoon. Lee's center came ashore Sunday in
Louisiana, dumping up to a foot of rain in parts of New Orleans and
other areas. Despite some street flooding, officials said New
Orleans' 24-pump flood control system was doing its job.
Heavy rain continued to fall in Mississippi on Monday, and a
swollen creek near an apartment complex in Jackson prompted
officials to move 45 families into a storm shelter. In Louisiana's
Livingston Parish, about 200 families were evacuated because of
flooding.
The man who died in Mississippi, 57-year-old John Howard
Anderson Jr., had been in a car with two other people trying to
cross a rain-swollen creek on Sunday night. Tishomingo County
Coroner Mack Wilemon said Anderson was outside of the car and
couldn't hold onto a rope thrown by a would-be rescuer.
Jonathan Weeks, a 48-year-old salesman from Plantersville who
owns a vacation home nearby, said he helped pull two people to
shore and tried to save Anderson.
Weeks said he and his wife saw a van crossing the creek, and he
happened to have a rope in the tool box of his truck.
"It all happened so fast. They were in there trying to get out
and panicking. The power was out so everything was dark," Weeks
recalled in a phone interview Monday.
"We threw them a rope and tied it to a tree," Weeks said. "We
got two of them to the bank and were trying to help the driver. We
had him on the rope and were trying to pull him in, but I don't
think he was able to hold on."
Elsewhere, the heavy rain made for a dud of a Labor Day holiday
as Gulf Coast beaches mostly cleared of tourists. On Monday
morning, the main road on Alabama's Dauphin Island was flooded and
covered with sand, jellyfish and foam washed in by Lee. Customers
trickled in to the town's largest store on what should have been a
busy day.
"It's been kind of boring," said Tabitha Miller, a clerk at
Ship and Shore. "It's not killing us though since we're the only
gig in town."
To the west, surf churned up by the storm has proven
treacherous. In Texas, a body boarder drowned after being pulled
out to sea in rough waters stirred by Lee, and the Coast Guard was
searching for a boy swept away off the Alabama coast.
The storm was expected to move up the Tennessee River Valley on
Tuesday, and forecasters have warned people to be on the lookout
for tornadoes. Several already had been reported, including one
that damaged five homes in Harrison County.
Rain already had started falling in Tennessee, though no campers
had been evacuated from Great Smoky Mountain National Park,
officials said.
The rain had stopped out in the Gulf of Mexico, allowing oil and
gas production platforms and rigs to look for damage and get
operations kick started again on Monday. Federal regulators said
evacuations had shut in about 61 percent of oil production and 46
percent of natural gas production in the Gulf.
Residents in Lee's wake are worrying about the effects of soggy
ground. Part of a levee holding back a lake in Mississippi's Rankin
County gave way, endangering some homes and a sod farm. Rankin
County Road Manager George Bobo said officials could order
evacuations of the few homes if the situation gets worse. The
indention left by the levee slide didn't go all the way through to
the water, though.
Sharon Spears, a 54-year-old special education teacher, stood in
her front yard Monday looking up at the red dirt exposed from the
levee slide.
"I'm concerned," Spears said. "I won't sleep any tonight."
Sandy Shamburger said a full breach would ruin his sod farm.
"It would be devastating. It would probably be the end of
Rankin Sod," he said.
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Associated Press writers Jay Reeves in Dauphin Island, Ala., and
Randall Dickerson in Nashville, Tenn., contributed to this report.
