Over forty thousand Alabama homes and businesses were left without electricity following severe weather that blew through overnight. Tornadoes associated with the system reportedly hit in Texas and Mississippi, killing two and injuring six as the system moved east. Initial reports say a possible tornado strike in Limestone County. Poweroutage.com says the most severe outages were in Lamar County (12,147 as of 6 am Sunday,) Bibb with almost 12,000, Fayette with almost 11,000, Macon with just over 9,000, and Perry with 5,000 reported outages.
Throughout the southeast, the severe weather damaged homes and flipped vehicles. The National Weather Service says the severe storm system was moving east through Alabama into Georgia. The agency has issued severe thunderstorm warnings with possible tornadoes in western Georgia and northwestern Florida. Saturday's tornadoes touched down north and south of Houston. Authorities say one person has died south of Houston and four people have suffered non-critical injuries. In Mississippi, a person has died in Adams country and two have been hurt in Franklin County. Nearly 81,000 utility customers were without power in Mississippi early Sunday.
One person died in the Liverpool area, located south of Houston, and four people suffered injuries that were not considered critical, according to Madison Polston of the Brazoria County Sheriff's Office.
There were "multiple touchdown points" in the county between Liverpool, Hillcrest Village and Alvin. Officials knew of around 10 damaged homes but were working to determine the extent of the damage, Polston said.
In Mississippi, one person died in Adams County and two people were injured in Franklin County, according to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
The National Weather Service said two tornadoes hit around Bude and the city of Brandon, ripping roofs from several buildings.
"These storms are probably going to get a lot worse this evening and overnight the further east you go," said Josh Lichter, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
It appeared at least six tornadoes touched down in the Houston area, though they may discover there were more when crews go out to survey the damage, and there was damage in the area from both tornadoes and straight-line winds, Litcher said.
North of Houston, mobile homes were damaged or destroyed in Katy and Porter Heights, where the doors of a fire station were blown in, the weather service said.
The storms also caused departure delays of over an hour Saturday afternoon at Houston's two main airports, Bush Intercontinental and Hobby, according to the website FlightAware.
About 71,000 utility customers were without power in Mississippi Saturday and the number was expected to rise, said Malary White, chief communications officer for the state's Emergency Management Agency.
Around 3:30 a.m. Sunday, nearly 81,000 customers were without power in the state, down from 93,000 around 1 a.m., according to electric utility tracking website PowerOutage.us.
The emergency management agency did not have official damage reports Saturday. First responders were focused on ensuring safety and making sure everyone was accounted for, White said.
"We do anticipate more thorough damage assessments starting in the early morning hours," she said.
The National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Alabama, issued overnight severe thunderstorm warnings for several areas in the southern part of the state, advising residents to seek shelter to avoid possible damaging winds up to 60 mph.
