Spring Storm, Tornado Kill 1 in S.C.
At least one person has died in connection to the spring storm that brought hail, damaging winds and at least one confirmed tornado to South Carolina, officials said Saturday.
James Adkinson, 63, of Beech Island, died around 11:30 p.m. Friday when a car he was driving struck trees that had fallen over the roadway, Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton told several media outlets.
Adkinson was wearing a seat belt, and the South Carolina Highway Patrol is investigating, Carlton said.
National Weather Service surveyors were dispatched to Aiken County to inspect damage from a confirmed tornado that touched down there Friday night as the storm rumbled through the state.
With at least 11 counties reporting damage from the storm, state officials said Aiken and two nearby counties, Abbeville and Greenwood, bore the brunt of the impact.
Statewide, six homes were completely destroyed, with dozens of others suffering major damage, said Derrec Becker, spokesman for the state Emergency Management Division.
The high winds also ripped the roof from a First Citizens bank in Aiken, according to Sheriff's Capt. Charles Barranco, who said authorities were coordinating with the Red Cross to open shelters in the area.
The storm also brought hail to many central areas of the state, with pieces as large as one-inch falling in the Barnwell area, National Weather Service meteorologist Kim Campbell said.
Thousands woke up without power Saturday across South Carolina. Duke Energy reported that about 12,000 of its South Carolina customers were without power, and about 1,500 South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. customers reported outages.
Searchers Look For More Victims Of Tenn. Tornado
The governor of Tennessee is scheduled Saturday to visit areas hit by a savage line of storms that wrecked homes, killed a mother and her baby and injured dozens of others the day before.
Gov. Phil Bredesen, Deputy Gov. John Morgan and U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon were among the officials expected to tour the affected areas in Rutherford County.
On Friday afternoon, search teams fanned out across the central Tennessee city of Murfreesboro, looking for anyone trapped in rubble.
As emergency crews worked their way through neighborhoods, they emblazoned homes with a spray-painted "c," indicating they had been checked.
Reports of destruction were widespread across the region Friday, with funnel clouds spotted in Kentucky and Alabama and devastating winds, huge hail and heavy rain reported in several states.
In South Carolina, a driver trying to avoid storm debris in the eastern part of the state was killed Friday, state Emergency Management Division spokesman Derrec Becker said.
The damage was worst in Rutherford County, Tennessee, some 30 miles southeast of Nashville.
At least 41 people were injured there, four of them critically. In Murfreesboro, at least three dozen homes were destroyed. Roofs were peeled from at least a dozen homes, and a bulldozer cleared limbs and other debris from streets.
The bodies of Kori Bryant, in her mid-20s, and 9-week-old Olivia Bryant were found near their driveway. The mother was apparently trying to get her baby into a car - both were found outside, and the infant was in a car seat, rescue official Randy White said.
Andrew Piro, 23, who was on his way to work when the tornado struck, told the Knoxville News-Sentinel he came upon a man who said his brother's wife and child were missing.
"Outside under the rubble, we found the wife," Piro said. "She was right beside the driveway, about 20 feet away from the house. She was under a bunch of wood, I guess part of the roof. We found the baby strapped into a car seat, about another 20 feet away under a tree. It broke my heart."
Joe Spencer, 23, a student at Middle Tennessee State University, said he had only moments to react but survived a direct hit on his house.
"I was going to open the door to see what was going on and I looked straight at a tornado," Spencer said.
He yelled at his brother to take shelter in one of the home's bathrooms and then ran to the other, jumping into the bathtub while holding his dog, Lloyd. All were uninjured.
In southwestern Kentucky near Mannington, State Trooper Stu Recke said one person suffered a broken hip and leg while the other suffered a broken ankle. Both were taken to a hospital for treatment, Recke said. The tornado there ripped homes from their foundations.
Several possible tornadoes were reported in north Georgia as heavy rain, hail and winds downed trees and power lines. Flights were delayed for up to 90 minutes at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as dark gray clouds swirled in from the west.
(Left: Kendall Lott walks in front on his tornado-damaged home, Friday, April 10, 2009, in Mena, Ark.)