ASHLAND — Instead of doing some last-minute shopping or wrapping gifts, families across the South spent Christmas Eve taking stock of their losses after an unusual outbreak of December tornadoes and other violent weather killed at least 14 people and damaged or destroyed dozens of homes.
“Santa brought us a good one, didn’t he?” Bobby Watkins said as he and his wife took a walk amid the destruction in rural Benton County, where four people — including a married couple and two neighbors on the same street — were confirmed dead. “I may have lost some stuff, but I got my life.”
Unseasonably warm weather Wednesday helped spawn twisters from Arkansas to Michigan. The line of springlike storms continued marching east Thursday, dumping torrential rain that flooded roads in Alabama and caused a mudslide in the mountains of Georgia.
Authorities confirmed seven deaths in Mississippi, including that of a 7-year-old boy who was in a car that was swept up and tossed by a storm. Six more died in Tennessee. One person was killed in Arkansas.
Dozens more were injured, some seriously, said Greg Flynn, spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
Search teams combed damaged homes and businesses for people still missing, including at least one man in hard-hit Benton County. The hunt was made complicated because so many had left for the holidays.
“Until they know for sure where those folks are, they’re going to keep looking, because we’ve had in some cases houses leveled, and they’re just not there anymore,” Flynn said.
An eight-person volunteer group from 4-County Electric Power Association left Lowndes County at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve to offer assistance in Tippah County. The crew was going to help Tippah County Electric Power Association in repairing damage to the system’s power lines, according to Brad Barr, spokesperson with 4-County.
An estimated 1,200 Tippah members were without power Thursday morning.
Peak tornado season in the South is in the spring, but such storms can happen at any time.
Glenda Hunt, 69, was cooking chicken and making dressing Wednesday night at her Benton County home, where Christmas Eve lunch is a family tradition, when her daughter called to warn her of the approaching storm.
Hunt and her husband ducked into their storm shelter and wrestled the door shut against the wind’s powerful suction. She started praying when she heard sheet metal hitting trees.
On Thursday, heavy farm equipment and corn were strewn across the couple’s property. Their house sustained heavy structural damage but was still standing.
“We’re OK and that’s all that matters,” Hunt said. “But the Lord did save my furniture.”
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