WASHINGTON — A powerful storm system that moved across the South on Monday killed four people in Alabama and left a trail of damage over several states, officials said.
The line of severe thunderstorms spawned several possible tornadoes, and the threat continued into early Tuesday for southern Alabama, southwest Georgia and the Florida Panhandle.
Four people were killed Monday evening when a tree fell on their mobile home in Rehobeth, Alabama, said Kris Ware, a spokeswoman for the Dothan Houston County Emergency Management Agency.
The National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning for Houston County in the southern part of the state Monday evening. Local media outlets reported that emergency officials advised residents to stay in their homes and assess damage in the morning.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said in a statement on social media that the Houston County sheriff had told him about the deaths and he offered “prayers for those impacted.”
In Georgia, some of the heaviest rains were expected late Monday night and into the overnight hours of early Tuesday morning, forecasters said. “There is a slight chance of damaging winds and tornadoes, however the highest probabilities are generally west of Interstate 75,” said Sid King, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Georgia, near Atlanta.
Parts of south Georgia could see as much as 3 inches of total rainfall from all the storms produced by the system now moving across southern states, King said.
