The cleanup is underway after a strong storm system spawned hail, rain, high winds and tornadoes across the southern U.S. over the weekend, killing at least four people. Alabama saw confirmed tornado damage in Limestone County. The National Weather Service said, as of Monday afternoon, over thirty tornadoes had been confirmed as crews worked through about 50 reports of tornado damage spanning from Texas to South Carolina.
Disaster managers confirm at an EF-1 hit the town of Athens. The community, northwest of Huntsville, says it saw storm damage in the downtown area. Large HVAC air conditioning units were hurled from the tops of building and the roof was ripped off a bookstore. A full-sized, stripped-down military helicopter was toppled from a pole where it was on display.
Although somewhat uncommon for the season, weather officials say even December can bring severe weather under the right circumstances, as warm temperatures from the Gulf of Mexico combine with a cold front.
"You can still have the right ingredients that lead to these severe events even in the dead of winter in the Deep South," said Peter Mullinax, a meteorologist with the National Weather Services' Weather Prediction Center.
The storms came over a busy holiday travel weekend, causing some treacherous road conditions along with delays or cancellations at some of the busiest U.S. airports.
The storms first hit Saturday around the Houston area, where the National Weather Service by Monday had confirmed six tornadoes. Two of the twisters were rated EF3, with peak winds of about 140 mph, including one that hit Montgomery County (Texas) in the Porter and New Caney areas.
"Some of the damage was pretty substantial, some cases leveling homes, some producing quite a bit of roof damage," said Brian Kyle, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Houston.
About 50 homes in Montgomery County sustained major damage and 30 were destroyed, county official Jason Smith said. A couple hundred more homes sustained minor or cosmetic damage, he said.
Cleanup crews labored over the weekend and were continuing to pick up debris Monday.
Carlos Benitez, 41, was already working to rebuild his auto repair shop in the New Caney area. He said he closed his eyes as the storm blew through and when he opened them, "everything's down."
Sasha Zamora, 39, lives nearby, and was trying to put her baby to sleep when she realized how serious the storm was. "Immediately, the wind picked up so fast that things were hitting the window," she said, recounting how she rushed her children to the center of the house. Though her family and her property came through the storm OK, her neighbor's mobile home flipped over, Zamora said.
Officials in Mississippi said two people were killed in storms there, including an 18-year-old who died after a tree fell on her home Saturday night in Natchez in Adams County. About 22,000 Mississippians remained without power Monday afternoon, according to the website PowerOutage.us. In Texas, a 48-year-old woman died in the Liverpool area south of Houston, said Madison Polston of the Brazoria County Sheriff's Office. She said the woman was found about 100 feet (30 meters) from her home.
Dozens of homes and buildings were significantly damaged in Brazoria County, including an elementary school.
In North Carolina, a 70-year-old man was killed Sunday in Statesville, just north of Charlotte, when a tree landed on the pickup truck he was driving. Highway Patrol Trooper DJ Maffucci said "it was just a freak accident" and he believed Matthew Teeple, of Cleveland, North Carolina, was killed instantly.
Maffucci said that the storms were responsible for a number of downed trees and "quite a few wrecks."
Meanwhile, in western Pennsylvania, high winds overnight Sunday caused power outages early Monday, most of them in Pittsburgh and other parts of Allegheny County. Wind speeds of more than 60 miles per hour were reported in Pennsylvania as high winds also blew across Ohio and northern West Virginia.
