Deadly day of tornados strike Alabama

By AP | Last updated: Mar 5, 2019 - 9:59:15 PM

Ashley Griggs, right, helps Joey Roush, left, sift through what's left of his mother's home after it was destroyed by a tornado in Beauregard, Ala., March 4. Photo: AP Photo/David Goldman

BEAUREGARD, Ala.—Rescuers searched for victims March 4 amid homes smashed to their foundations, shredded metal dangling from trees and dead animals lying in the open after at least one tornado ripped through a rural Alabama community.

At least 23 people were killed, some of them children.

The twister rated an EF-3, with winds believed to be around 136 mph or higher, was part of a powerful storm system that slashed its way across the Deep South, spawning numerous tornado warnings in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.

Patrick Marsh, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center, said the deaths could have come from more than one tornado. There was another likely twister reported in the county, he said.

It was the highest single-day death toll from tornadoes in the U.S. since May 2013, when an EF-5 twister killed 24 people in Moore, Oklahoma, Mr. Marsh said.

Tornado seen from the truck stop in Warner Robins, GA. Photo: MGN Online

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