Selma (US): A giant, swirling storm system billowing across the South killed at least six people in central Alabama and another in Georgia and knocked out power to tens of thousands on Thursday, while a tornado spawned by the system shredded the walls of homes, toppled roofs and uprooted trees in Selma. In Autauga County, Alabama, which is 66 kilometres northeast of Selma, at least six fatalities were confirmed and an estimated 40 to 50 homes were damaged or destroyed by storms that cut a strip across the county, said Ernie Baggett, the county's emergency management director. At least 12 people were injured severely enough to be taken to hospitals by emergency responders, Baggett told The Associated Press, adding that he didn't know the extent of their injuries.
He said crews were focused Thursday evening on cutting through downed trees to look for people who may need help. "There are some houses that were completely destroyed that haven't been searched yet," Autauga County Coroner Buster Barber said late Thursday, adding that crews "are still in the process of searching through rubble." In Georgia, a passenger died when a tree fell on a vehicle in Jackson during the storm, Butts County Coroner Lacey Prue said. In the same county southeast of Atlanta, the storm appeared to have knocked a freight train off its tracks, officials said. Nationwide, there were 33 separate tornado reports Thursday from the National Weather Service as of Thursday evening, with a handful of tornado warnings still in effect in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
However, the reports were not yet confirmed and some of them could later be classified as wind damage after assessments are done in coming days. In Selma, a city etched in the history of the civil rights movement, brick buildings collapsed, cars were on their side and traffic poles were strewn about in the downtown area. Plumes of thick, black smoke rose over the city from a fire burning. It wasn't immediately known whether the storm caused the blaze. A few blocks past the city's famed Edmund Pettus Bridge, an enduring symbol of the voting rights movement, buildings were crumpled by the storm and trees blocked roadways. Selma Mayor James Perkins said no fatalities have been reported, but first responders were continuing to assess the damage.
"We have a lot of downed power lines," he said. A city of about 18,000 residents, Selma is about 80 kilometres west of the Alabama capital city of Montgomery. It was a flashpoint of the civil rights movement and where Alabama state troopers viciously attacked Black people advocating for voting rights as they marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965. After the tornado passed, Krishun Moore emerged from her home to the sound of children crying and screaming. She and her mother encouraged the kids to keep screaming until they found the two of them on top of the roof of a damaged apartment. She estimated the kids were about 1 and 4 years old. Both of them are OK, she said through Facebook messenger.