Updated

A hospital in an Alabama city pummeled by a tornado has admitted more than 100 people to its emergency room.

That number comes from spokesman Brad Fisher at DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa. He also says that the hospital has pronounced three people dead.

That increases the death toll to at least 18 in several states for a wave of severe weather around the South.

At least eight of those deaths are in Alabama, but Gov. Robert Bentley says he expects the death toll to rise. Sections of Tuscaloosa have been destroyed.