COLUMBIA — Dangerous storms hit parts of the southern United States on Thursday, even as the region was spared from previous extreme weather that produced tornadoes, killed at least three people and seriously injured a child who was swept into a storm drain. while playing in a flooded street.
A strong line of storms moved into Atlanta near the end of the morning rush hour. Delays were reported at the busy major airports in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina. The US National Weather Service’s Storm Forecast Center cited a “high risk” of severe weather from Texas to South Carolina.
The storms continue a streak of torrential rain and tornadoes this week from the Great Plains to the north-central United States and now into the Southeast. At least four people have died since Monday. The weather comes on the heels of a stormy April, which saw 300 confirmed tornadoes occur in the United States, the second-highest number on record for that month, and the most since 2011.
On Thursday, nearly a quarter of a million homes and businesses in several Southern states still had no power after the previous night’s storms, according to PowerOutage.us.
A storm in Tennessee damaged homes, injured people, downed power lines and trees, and caused the death of a 22-year-old man in a car in Claiborne County, north of Knoxville, authorities said. Another person died south of Nashville in Columbia, where authorities said a probable tornado tore several homes off their foundations.
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Source: With information from AP
