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Alabama tornado ‘dangerous’ collapses houses, uproots trees

SELMA, Ala. –

A massive tornado system blowing through the South created a tornado Thursday that tore through the walls of homes, toppled roofs and uprooted trees in Selma, Alabama, a deeply carved city. in the history of the civil rights movement.

Collapsed brick buildings, tilted cars and traffic poles littered the downtown area. Thick columns of black smoke rose over the city from the fire. It was not immediately clear if the storm caused the blaze.

A few blocks from the city’s famous Edmund Pettus bridge, an enduring symbol of the suffrage movement, buildings were destroyed by storms and trees blocked the road.

Selma Mayor James Perkins said that no deaths have been reported at this time, but first responders are continuing to assess the damage.

“There were injuries, but no deaths,” Perkins said. “We have a lot of downed power lines. There’s a lot of danger on the streets.”

The mayor added that the city’s curfew is in place.

The “large and extremely dangerous tornado” caused damage as it moved through the historic city, the National Weather Service said. The agency said there were confirmed reports of tree and structural damage in Selma and reports of damage in other counties.

There was damage “all over Selma,” former State Senator Hank Sanders said he was notified.

“A tornado certainly did harm Selma. In fact, it hit our house but didn’t hit us directly. It blew out the windows in the bedroom and living room. It was raining through the roof during the day. kitchen,” Sanders said.

Selma, a city of about 18,000 residents, is about 50 miles (80 km) west of the Alabama capital, Montgomery.

Selma was a bright spot of the civil rights movement. Alabama State Troopers brutally attacked Black suffragettes as they marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965. Among those beaten by law enforcement officers was John Lewis , who had a broken skull. He had a long and distinguished career as a United States congressman.

After the tornado passed, Krishun Moore walked out of the house when he heard children crying and screaming. She and her mother encouraged the children to keep screaming until they found them on the roof of a damaged apartment. She estimates the children are about one and four years old. Both are fine, she said via Facebook messenger.

Malesha McVay with her family drove parallel to the tornado. She said it was less than a mile from her house before abruptly diverging.

“We stopped and prayed. We followed it and prayed,” she said. “It’s 100% true that it turned right before crashing into my house.”

She recorded a video of a giant tornado that turns black as it sweeps from house to house.

“It would hit a house and black smoke would come up,” she said. “It’s very scary.”

The weather service has declared a tornado emergency for several counties north of Montgomery as a similar storm system moves east. “This is a life-threatening situation. Seek shelter immediately,” the weather service said of the reported tornado.

There were multiple tornado warnings in place Thursday for Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee as the storm system moved through the area.

More than 50,000 customers lost power in Alabama, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide.

In Georgia, more than 100,000 customers were without power shortly before sunset Thursday as a storm system swept through a swath of counties south of Atlanta, according to PowerOutage.us.

Local news outlets reported the storm made landfall in Griffin, south of Atlanta, with winds damaging a shopping area. The Hobby Lobby store had its roof partially blown off and at least one car overturned in a nearby Walmart parking lot.

Damage was also reported west of downtown Atlanta in Douglas County and Cobb County, with the Cobb County government posting a damage report showing a crumbling cement block wall at a suburban warehouse Austell.

In Kentucky, the National Weather Service in Louisville confirmed that an EF-1 tornado hit Mercer County and said teams were surveying damage in several other counties. There have been reports of downed trees, power outages and other scattered damage as the storm moved through the state.

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Associated Press writer Alina Hartounian in Phoenix, Arizona; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Rebecca Reynolds of Louisville, Kentucky; and photographer Butch Dill of Selma, Alabama, contributed to this report.



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