Officials are reporting a jail and over a hundred houses destroyed. The storms are moving across Alabama, just passed Birmingham, and Tennessee, moving along I-50/29 area and two other super cells, one in southern Tennessee. (Per Weather Channel.)

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

Answers

Deadly storms hit southern U.S.

November 24, 2001 Posted: 2:27 PM EST (1927 GMT)

SLEDGE, Mississippi (CNN) -- Strong storms ripped through the South early Saturday, killing at least four people in their homes, local officials said.

Two people died after a possible tornado ripped through Sledge, in rural northern Mississippi, according to the Quitman County Sheriff's Department.

About 10 others were injured when the storm hit a residential area at about 2:40 a.m., said Quitman County Deputy Charles Sims.

The National Weather Service in nearby Memphis, Tennessee, had not yet confirmed the storm as a tornado.

A man and a woman died when a tornado struck near Wilmot, Arkansas, said Ashley County administrator, Judge Larry Kinnard. Six others were injured in the rural southeastern Arkansas county, and about six homes were damaged.

But Kinnard said the damage could have been much worse.

"If the tornado had been a half-mile east, all of Wilmot would be gone," he said.

The weather service confirmed that a tornado touched down near Jackson in central Mississippi, damaging some 60 homes and injuring at least 18 people in Madison County, officials said.

A dispatcher for the Madison County Sheriff's Department said the department received reports of small buildings being picked up by the storm and tossed as the storm moved through about 5:30 a.m.

"One person called and said he walked outside and saw a funnel cloud take his roof off," the dispatcher told CNN.

Ambulances took at least 18 people from the Jackson suburb of Fairfield to several area hospitals, the dispatcher said. He was not aware of any other injuries.

The storm left hundreds of homes in the Jackson area without power, the dispatcher said. At least four Mississippi counties are still under a tornado warning, the weather service said.

The weather service in Jackson is investigating four separate tracks of significant damage, forecaster Ed Agre said, and could only confirm the two tornadoes in Madison County and Wilmot, Arkansas.

Weather officials were also investigating damaged areas in northeast Louisiana, near Vicksburg, Mississippi, to determine if a tornado had hit.

In Memphis, weather service officials have received reports of heavy wind damage in the Memphis suburb of Collierville, but no reports of tornadoes, said meteorologist Jason Elliot.

The weather service was also investigating a tornado report in Tate County, Mississippi.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

Via Drudge:

8 Die in Miss., Ark. Storms By Timothy R. Brown Associated Press Writer Saturday, November 24, 2001; 2:36 PM

Deadly thunderstorms swept across the lower Mississippi Valley, flattening homes and poultry farms and ripping down power lines. At least eight deaths were blamed on the storms and dozens were injured.

The scream of warning sirens woke Roosevelt Greenwood before dawn Saturday in Madison, Miss., and he crowded with his wife and four children into a tiny hall closet.

"As soon as I closed the door to the closet, the tornado hit. It took the roof off," said Greenwood, 33. "Where my 2-year-old son had been lying, the wall caved in on the crib."

No one in his family was hurt, but the tornado that ripped through the town killed one person and injured at least 21 people, including a pregnant woman who was hospitalized in critical condition.

The house next to the Greenwoods was blown away, leaving only a car where the garage had stood. "It's definitely by the grace of God that we're here," Greenwood said.

Three people were killed early Saturday in northwestern Mississippi's Delta region, including Hattie Robinson in the tiny town of Sledge.

"It blew (her) house from where it was sitting clean across the road," said Sledge Mayor Lorenzo Windless.

Four other deaths and additional injuries were reported late Friday in Arkansas.

The severe weather was part of a line of thunderstorms that spanned the Ohio and Mississippi valleys from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico as a cold front swept through the region. The National Weather Service posted tornado warnings Saturday in Mississippi, western Kentucky and Alabama, and severe storm warnings were issued for parts of those states and Tennessee.

Storms earlier had passed through parts of Louisiana, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas.

Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove toured damaged areas of Madison, where dozens of homes were ripped from their foundations.

Resident Winston Thompson said sirens awoke him and his mother. He said eight or 10 homes on his street were blown away or extensively damaged.

"There were flashes of lightning, then the sound of explosions like a gunbattle," Thompson said. "I walked outside and I could hear people call over and over for help."

Utilities said about 22,000 customers were without power in central and eastern Mississippi.

The storms in the Delta also ripped the roof off the Bolivar County Correctional Facility. Authorities moved 207 inmates to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.

"We had some injuries but none were of a serious nature at all," said Ken Jones, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.

Downed trees and power lines were spread across much of Arkansas but authorities had not officially determined if the storms that struck late Friday included tornadoes. Homes and poultry houses were damaged or destroyed.

In southeast Arkansas, two deaths and heavy damage were reported in Wilmot, a town of about 1,500, and many people were without electricity, said Jennifer Gordon, spokeswoman for the state Emergency Management Department.

In northwestern Arkansas, one death was reported late Friday at Hunt, in Johnson County, which may have been struck by a tornado, said weather service meteorologist John Lewis. Arkansas' fourth weather- related death was a traffic fatality on a rain-slippery highway, the State Police reported.

At least seven homes were destroyed in the Searcy area, in east- central Arkansas, 15 were damaged and three people were injured, authorities said. Power also was out in much of that area, Gordon said.

Elsewhere, high wind late Friday destroyed a house in Mount Vernon, Mo., and three people suffered minor injuries when their vehicle overturned, authorities said. Wind and hail nearly an inch in diameter also damaged buildings elsewhere in Missouri.

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On the Net:

National Weather Service: http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov

Intellicast: http://www.intellicast.com

© 2001 The Associated Press

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001