Georgia

Storms Tears Through South Amid Pandemic; At Least 30 Dead

Striking first on Easter across a landscape largely emptied by coronavirus stay-at-home orders, the storm front forced some tough decisions

NBCUniversal, Inc. Severe storms swept Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama on Sunday, destroying houses and cars on a day where many families expected to celebrate Easter. Forecasters say the severe weather threat could last for several more days.

Storms that killed more than 30 people in the Southeast, piling fresh misery atop a pandemic, spread across the eastern United States on Monday, leaving more than 1 million homes and businesses without power amid floods and mudslides.

In Alabama, people seeking shelter from tornadoes huddled in community shelters, protective masks covering their faces to guard against the new coronavirus. A twister demolished a Mississippi home save for a concrete room where a married couple and their children survived unharmed, but 11 others died in the state.

About 85 miles (137 kilometers) from Atlanta in the mountains of north Georgia, Emma and Charles “Peewee” Pritchett laid still in their bed praying as a suspected twister splintered the rest of their home.

“I said, ‘If we’re gonna die I’m going to be beside him,’” the woman said Monday. Both survived without injuries.

Nine died in South Carolina, Gov. Gov. Henry McMaster said, and coroners said eight were killed in Georgia. Tennessee officials said three people were killed in and around Chattanooga, and others died under falling trees or inside collapsed buildings in Arkansas and North Carolina.

With a handful of tornadoes already confirmed in the South and storms still raging up the Eastern Seaboard, forecasters fanned out to determine how much of the widespread damage was caused by twisters.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said the storms were “as bad or worse than anything we’ve seen in a decade.”

“We are used to tornadoes in Mississippi,” he said. “No one is used to this.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said some storm victims already were out of work because of shutdowns caused by COVID-19. "Now they have lost literally everything they own,” he said.

Striking first on Easter across a landscape largely emptied by coronavirus stay-at-home orders, the storm front forced some uncomfortable decisions. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey suspended social distancing rules, and some people wearing protective masks huddled closely together in storm shelters.

The storms blew onward through the night, causing flooding and mudslides in mountainous areas, and knocking out electricity for nearly 1.3 million customers in a path from Texas to Maine, according to poweroutages.us.

As much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain fell over the weekend in the Tennessee Valley. The Tennessee Valley Authority said it expected to release water to regulate levels in swollen lakes and rivers in Tennessee and Alabama.

In southeast Mississippi, Andrew Phillips crowded into a closet-sized “safe room” with his wife and two sons hours after watching an online Easter service because the pandemic forced their church to halt regular worship. Then a twister struck, shredding their house, meat-processing business and vehicles in rural Moss, Mississippi. The room, built of sturdy cinder blocks, was the only thing on their property left standing.

“I’m just going to let the insurance handle it and trust in the good Lord,” said Phillips.

Martin Meissner/AP
Photos of parishioners, who were asked to send in pictures to represent them, are placed on empty seats due to the coronavirus at the Evangelical St. Pankratius church on Easter Monday, April 13, 2020, in Hamm, Germany. Believers in Germany still can not celebrate services at the closed churches, mosques and synagogues because of the virus outbreak.
Steven Senne/AP
Rev. William Schipper, pastor of Mary, Queen of the Rosary Parish, left, wears a mask and gloves out of concern for the coronavirus as he sprinkles holy water and blesses parishioners who remain in their vehicles in the parking lot of the church, on Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020, in Spencer, Massachusetts. Churches needed to get creative in an age of social distancing for Easter, going as far as to host drive-through masses and streaming services on the web.
Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Sylvia Salley looks at the remains of her sister’s storm-damaged home April 13, 2020, in Livingston, South Carolina. A string of storms caused more than a dozen deaths across the southern United States.
Alex Davidson/Getty Images
The Wimbledon brand as seen at The All England Tennis and Croquet Club, April 1, 2020, in London, England. Wimbledon was cancelled for the first time since World War II on Wednesday, as countries around the world grapple with outbreaks of COVID-19 cases at home and abroad. Wimbledon was scheduled to play June 29 to July 12.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Members of Samaritans’s Purse put the finishing touches on a field hospital in New York’s Central Park on March 30, 2020, in New York City. The group plans to open a 68-bed field hospital specifically equipped to serve as a respiratory care unit as New York grapples with tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases.
Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images
The USNS Comfort medical ship moves up the Hudson River past the Statue of Liberty as it arrives on March 30, 2020, in New York. The military hospital ship arrived Monday as America’s coronavirus epicenter prepares to fight the peak of the pandemic that has killed over 2,500 people across the US. It will treat non-virus-related patients, helping to ease the burden of hospitals overwhelmed by the crisis.
Domenico Stinellis, Antonio Calanni, Luca Bruno/AP
Italian doctors and nurses pose for portraits during a break or at the end of their shifts in Rome, Bergamo and Brescia, Italy, March 27, 2020. The intensive care doctors and nurses on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic in Italy are often almost unrecognizable behind their masks, scrubs, gloves and hairnets.
Tomas Stargardter/AP
A forest fire burns on a hill north of Mexico City, Saturday, March 28, 2020–one of several to burn in the hills surrounding Mexico City for the past two days.
Jeff Chiu/AP
A man looks toward the skyline from Bernal Heights Hill in San Francisco, March 16, 2020. Officials in six San Francisco Bay Area counties issued a shelter-in-place mandate Monday affecting nearly 7 million people, including the city of San Francisco itself. The order says residents must stay inside and venture out only for necessities for three weeks starting Tuesday in a desperate attempt by officials to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Craig Ruttle/AP
Trader Gregory Rowe, center, and others work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Monday, March 16, 2020. Monday’s close saw the worst loss for Wall Street in 30 years over fears of the coronavirus outbreak grinding economies to a halt.
Ted S. Warren/AP
Neal Browning receives a shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, March 16, 2020, at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. Browning is the second patient to receive the shot in the study.
Aaron Favila/AP
A police officer checks temperatures as part of precautionary measures against the spread of the new coronavirus in Manila, Philippines, March 16, 2020. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some, it can cause more severe illness, especially in older adults and people with existing health problems.
Lin Shanchuan/Xinhua via AP
Rescuers search for victims at the site of a hotel collapse in Quanzhou, China, March 8, 2020. The death toll rose to 20 on Tuesday after the collapse of the Chinese hotel that was being used to isolate people who had arrived from other parts of China hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak. Ten people are still missing.
Getty Images
Medical professionals pose for photos as the last batch of COVID-19 patients are discharged from the Wuchang Fang Cang makeshift hospital, March 10, 2020, in Wuhan, China. The city has closed 11 temporary hospitals as the number of patients dropped.
Noah Berger/AP
The Grand Princess is held off the coast of San Francisco, March 8, 2020. The city is prepared to receive the thousands of people aboard the ship, 21 of whom tested positive for the coronavirus, on Monday.
Antonio Calann/AP
Inmates stage a protest on the roof of the San Vittore prison in Milan against new rules made to cope with the coronavirus crisis, including the suspension of relatives’ visits, March 9, 2020. Italy took a page from China’s playbook Sunday, attempting to lock down 16 million people — more than a quarter of its population — for nearly a month to halt the relentless march of the new coronavirus across Europe.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
A police officer stands behind her riot shield covered in red paint during an International Women’s Day march in Mexico City’s main square, the Zocalo, Sunday, March 8, 2020. Protests against gender violence in Mexico have intensified in recent years amid an increase in killings of women and girls.
Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, right, and his wife Jill attend a primary election night rally Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Los Angeles. Biden won 9 states on Super Tuesday with one race still too close to call.
Wade Payne/AP
Two men look at damage Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Cookeville, Tenn. after a tornado hit on Monday night.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
From left: former Mayor of South Bend Pete Buttigieg, Rev. Al Sharpton, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren walk together over the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 1, 2020, in Selma, Alabama. Some of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates attended a Selma bridge crossing jubilee ahead of Super Tuesday.
Elaine Thompson/AP
A person is taken by a stretcher to a waiting ambulance from a nursing facility where more than 50 people are sick and being tested for the COVID-19 virus, Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020, in Kirkland, Washington. Two patients stricken with the coronavirus died in Washington state, health officials said.
Aaron Favila/AP
Hostages walk out at the V-Mall in Manila, Philippines, March 2, 2020, after a day-long hostage crisis. Officials say a recently dismissed security guard entered the mall with a pistol and grenades and took dozens of mall employees hostage. The suspect, identified as Archie Paray, was allowed to speak to the media before he was arrested.
Morry Gash/AP
Police respond to reports of an active shooting at the Molson Coors Brewing Co. campus in Milwaukee, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. Five people died when a 51-year-old former employee opened fire at the plant before killing himself, authorities said.
Nariman El-Mofty/AP
Supporters of ousted President Hosni Mubarak hold posters with his photograph near the cemetery where he will be buried, in the Heliopolis neighborhood of Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. Egypt held a full-honors military funeral for Mubarak, who was ousted from power in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. Mubarak, 91, died Tuesday at a Cairo military hospital from heart and kidney complications.
Dennis Fujimoto/The Garden Island via AP
Lori Vallow appears in court in Lihue, Hawaii, Feb. 26, 2020. A judge ruled that bail will remain at $5 million for Vallow, also known as Lori Daybell, who was arrested in Hawaii over the disappearance of her two children in Idaho.
Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images
Women wearing a respiratory mask walks across Piazza del Duomo in central Milan, Feb. 23, 2020. Tens of thousands of Italians prepared for a weeks-long quarantine in the country’s north as 219 people tested positive for coronavirus, making Italy the site of the highest number of cases outside Asia.
Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images
Carnival revellers crowd at the roadside and watch a float depicting the “carnival virus” making a fool of the coronavirus during the Rose Monday carnival street parade in Duesseldorf, Germany, Feb. 24, 2020.
Alex Brandon/AP
President Donald Trump, with first lady Melania Trump, tour the Taj Mahal, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, in Agra, India. This is the first official visit to India for the Trumps. See more photos here.
Jae C. Hong/AP
Members of the press surrounds an unidentified passenger after he disembarked from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, Feb. 19, 2020, in Yokohama, Japan. Passengers that tested negative for COVID-19 were allowed to disembark Wednesday after a 14-day quarantine.
Ng Han Guan/AP
Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com delivery workers prepare for the morning round of deliveries from a distribution center in Beijing, China, Feb. 18, 2020. JD and rivals including Pinduoduo, Miss Fresh and Alibaba Group’s Hema are scrambling to fill a boom in orders while protecting employees. E-commerce is one of the few industries to thrive after anti-virus controls starting in late January closed factories, restaurants, cinemas, offices and shops nationwide and extinguished auto and real estate sales.

The National Weather Service tallied hundreds of reports of trees down across the region, including many that punctured roofs and downed power lines. Meteorologists warned the mid-Atlantic states to prepare for potential tornadoes, wind and hail. The storms knocked down trees across Pennsylvania.

In northwest Georgia, a narrow path of destruction 5 miles (8 kilometers) long hit two mobile home parks. A terrified David Baggett of Chatsworth survived by cowering with his children in the bathtub of his mobile home, which was cut in two by a falling tree.

“It got quiet and then the wind started coming in really fast,” said Baggett, 33.

To the north in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at least 150 homes and commercial buildings were damaged and more than a dozen people treated, but none of their injuries appeared to be life-threatening, Fire Chief Phil Hyman said.

It wasn't clear whether the combination of destroyed housing and social distancing requirements would lead to problems for tornado survivors, some of whom said they planned to stay with relatives.

The deaths in Mississippi included a married couple — Lawrence County Sheriff’s deputy Robert Ainsworth and a Walthall County Justice Court deputy clerk, Paula Reid Ainsworth, authorities said.

“Robert left this world a hero, as he shielded Mrs. Paula during the tornado,“ said a Facebook message by the sheriff’s office.

In Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards said it was “a miracle” that no serious injuries or fatalities resulted from the Sunday tornadoes that damaged hundreds of homes around Monroe and in other parts of north Louisiana. But he lamented that because of coronavirus-related mandates, he felt he had to keep his distance from victims whose properties were devastated.

In north Alabama, where lightning struck Shoal Creek Baptist Church shortly after noon Sunday, catching the tall, white steeple on fire, pastor Mahlon LeCroix said the building would have been full of more than 200 people at the time had the pandemic not forced him to switch to online services.

“It turned out to be a blessing,” he said.

Copyright The Associated Press
Exit mobile version