BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Nearly 110,000 homes and businesses lost electricity as a line of storms moved across the Deep South early Thursday, with at least two people sent to a hospital because of a possible tornado touchdown.
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 two people taken to a hospital were in a mobile home that flipped west of Bogalusa, Louisiana, around 3:30 a.m. CDT, said Bobbi Jo Breland, assistant director of the Washington Parish office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness said in an email. She did not know the extent of their injuries.
A roof collapsed on a nearby home and one person had to be rescued there, Breland said.
Bogalusa is about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northeast of New Orleans.
Forecasters said the storms would bring a threat of tornados, heavy winds and drenching rain. The storms were expected to move into Georgia later Thursday.
At least 110,000 customers were without power as the storms moved eastward. The biggest problems were in central and eastern Louisiana and western Mississippi.
Schools were delayed in the New Orleans area and other parts of southeastern Louisiana. Multiple school systems in Alabama and Mississippi canceled or delayed classes because of the weather threat.
Classes were cancelled in Mississippi's Natchez-Adams School District after storms damaged homes and tore down trees.
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