Storms moving through the Deep South with howling wind and pounding rain were blamed for at least one death and left nearly 110,000 homes and businesses without electricity early Thursday.
At least two other people were sent to a hospital because of a possible tornado touchdown in Louisiana, and forecasters said the weather threat would last hours more.
The Storm Prediction Center reported trees and utility lines down across a wide area from eastern Louisiana to northwest Alabama, and radar showed storms reaching from the Gulf Coast to the Ohio Valley.
The Mississippi Department of Public Safety said Alcon State University student Jayla A. Gray, 19, of Jackson died when the car in which she was a passenger struck a tree that had fallen across a highway near the town of Port Gibson, which is about 60 miles southwest of the capital of Jackson. The driver and another passenger escaped injury, the agency said in a statement.
Troopers said weather was a factor in the wreck, which happened about 3 a.m. CDT, or just minutes after a storm toppled trees near Kevin Bryant’s mobile home a few miles away in Port Gibson. Daybreak revealed a shattered community littered with broken trees and pieces of buildings, said Bryant.
