5 dead, several injured as tornadoes, severe weather hit Alabama, Tennessee

ROSALIE, Ala. — The death toll from severe storms that moved across the South Tuesday night has risen to five.

An official in Tennessee says two people have been killed and at least nine others injured in severe weather that hit the state overnight.

Tennessee Emergency Management Agency spokesman Dean Flener says a husband and wife died and two others were injured in Polk County. He said at least seven injuries were reported in nearby McMinn County. He didn’t have further details on what happened.

Flener says suspected tornadic activity was reported in six counties, all in the southeastern corner of Tennessee.

A possible tornado swept through an area in northeast Alabama, killing three in a mobile home and injuring others as severe storms moved across the South overnight, authorities said.

The suspected tornado hit in the small community of Rosalie, Jackson County Chief Deputy Rocky Harnen said. Another person in the mobile home where the three died was critically injured, Harnen said.

Officials in nearby DeKalb County said the same possible tornado hit a closed day care center in the Ider community, injuring seven people, including three children.

“Those that were injured at the day care center had left their mobile home to seek shelter in the building,” said Anthony Clifton, DeKalb County Emergency Management Director.

Clifton said 50 to 60 homes in the county had been damaged with about half of them destroyed.

Harnen said there were a number of other injuries and estimated that 16 to 20 structures in Jackson County have been destroyed. He could not give an exact number of injuries.

Harnen and Clifton said authorities were searching door to door before dawn Wednesday for any other damage and injuries.

Possible tornadoes were reported across several counties in northern Alabama and southern Tennessee, National Weather Service meteorologist Lauren Nash said.

Tornadoes and hail were also reported Tuesday in Louisiana and Mississippi. In Mississippi, the National Weather Service in Jackson said late Tuesday that it had counted six confirmed tornadoes so far in the areas of the state it monitors.

The Storm Forecast Center in Norman, Oklahoma, issued a tornado watch from southeast Louisiana to northwest Georgia as a line of severe storm moved southeast Wednesday morning.

National Weather Service offices in Louisiana and Alabama planned to send personnel out Wednesday to check on possible tornados that occurred late Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.