Severe storms strike Southeast
TUPELO, Miss. (AP) - May 8, 2008 There were no reported injuries. Mississippi authorities
received reports of fallen trees and debris across the area, and
officials were dispatched to check out the damage at a shopping
mall in Tupelo, Miss., about 160 miles northeast of Jackson.
A number of northeast Mississippi counties and portions of
northwest Alabama were under tornado watches or warnings until
midafternoon Thursday.
In Tupelo, 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,
and a fraction of those were still in the dark Thursday.