Three Dead as Tornadoes Hit Southern U.S.

A tornado that dipped into Holly Springs, Mississippi, late Wednesday afternoon resulted in one confirmed death and widespread damage there, and authorities in neighboring Benton County confirmed two fatalities.

Tennessee also recorded two deaths, in Perry County, and there was one in Arkansas from the severe storms.

Marshall County, Mississippi, Coroner James Richard Anderson confirmed the death of a 7-year-old boy in Holly Springs. His identity had not been determined. There were reports of a second fatality, but Anderson said he had received no confirmation of additional fatalities in his county as of late Wednesday evening.

In Benton County, Sheriff's Department dispatcher Missy Campbell said there were two confirmed fatalities and "two or three missing" in the aftermath of storms.

The scene in Holly Springs was chaotic as emergency workers from throughout North Mississippi converged to triage the injured and assess damage from the tornado, which appeared to be one of multiple tornadoes that tracked through the area as part of a system forecasters had warned could be "particularly dangerous."

Other areas of northern Mississippi also reported damage, including Clarksdale.

Jennifer Tipler, an emergency room nurse at Methodist Hospital in Olive Branch, said she was shopping at the Walmart in Holly Springs when the tornado hit. She said she and another nurse were pressed into service helping triage victims after they told authorities they were nurses.

Tipler said she and retired nurse Sherry Keel treated five people in an area along Miss. 7. She said a child was dead as well as a woman trapped in a car who Anderson could not confirm.

In Clarksdale, in Coahoma County, Mayor Bill Luckett said the only confirmed casualty was a dog killed by storm debris. Planes at a small airport overturned and an unknown number of people were injured.

"I'm looking at some horrific damage right now," the mayor said. "Sheet metal is wrapped around trees, there are overturned airplanes, a building is just destroyed."

In television images, a tornado appeared to be on the ground for more than 10 minutes. Interstate 55 was closed in both directions as the tornado approached, the Mississippi Highway Patrol said.

The Tennessee Department of Health confirmed the two deaths there. Officials said one victim was male and the other female, but no further details were available.

The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said numerous counties reported debris across roads and some communications issues.

In addition to the damage in Mississippi and Tennessee, an 18-year-old died in Arkansas when a tree blew into a house.

The destruction was part of a system that forecasters feared would turn Christmas yard decorations into projectiles.

The biggest threat for tornadoes was in a region of 3.7 million people in Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas and parts of Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky, according to the national Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma.

The center issued a "particularly dangerous situation" alert for the first time since June 2014, when two massive EF4 twisters devastated a rural Nebraska town, killing two people.

In Mississippi, convenience store clerk Brandi Holland of Tupelo said people were reminded of a tornado that damaged or destroyed more than 2,000 homes and businesses in April 2014.

The threat of severe weather just before Christmas is unusual, but not unprecedented, said Greg Carbin, a meteorologist at the national Storm Prediction Center.

Twisters hit southeast Mississippi exactly a year ago, killing four people and injuring dozens. On Christmas Day in 2012, a storm system spawned several tornadoes, damaging homes from Texas to Alabama.

Emergency officials in Tennessee worried that powerful winds could turn holiday yard decorations into projectiles, the same way gusts can fling patio furniture in springtime storms, said Marty Clements, director of the Madison County Emergency Management Agency in Jackson, the state's largest city between Memphis and Nashville.

"If you go through these neighborhoods, there are a lot of people very proud of what they've put out and they've got stuff everywhere — all these ornaments and deer and everything else," Clements said. "They're not manufactured to withstand that kind of wind speed, so they become almost like little missiles."

Two twisters hit central Louisiana Monday, injuring a man whose travel trailer flipped over. The Lake Charles office of the National Weather Service said both were EF-1 twisters with peak winds of 95 mph. The tornadoes uprooted trees and damaged homes and cars.

In Arkansas, Pope County Sheriff Shane Jones said the 18-year-old woman was killed when a tree crashed into her bedroom. The woman and her 1½-year-old sister were sleeping in a bedroom of the house near Atkins, about 65 miles northwest of Little Rock, when winds uprooted the tree that crashed through the roof.

Once the strong storms clear out, warm temperatures were expected. Highs in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, today are forecast to be in the mid-70s.

Freelance correspondent Richard Cotton contributed to this report. Also contributing were Associated Press writers Alexandra Olson in New York, Claudia Lauer in Little Rock and Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama.

———

©2015 The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.)

Visit The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.) at www.commercialappeal.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.