Several Dead after Storms Hit N.C.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

11/16/2006 -- At least seven people are dead after a tornado ripped apart a mobile home park in the Columbus County community of Riegelwood. And officials searching for victims are warning that the death toll could rise.

"We've stepped across bodies to get (to) debris and search for other bodies here this morning," said Columbus County Commissioner Sammie Jacobs.

Jacobs said Sheriff Chris Batten told him there were at least six fatalities "and quite a few people with various injuries here and there who have been taken to various hospitals."

In the area of Riegelwood, just west of the coastal city of Wilmington, authorities said they were investigating reports that others may be trapped or dead from the storms. Jennifer Long, the county's tourism director who was helping emergency management officials Thursday, said she had received reports that three more people had died -- which would bring the total of tornado-related deaths in North Carolina to nine.

The Charlotte Observer also reported that one person died in a multi-vehicle accident on Interstate 77 about five miles north of the city while heavy rain fell around 7:30 a.m. Thursday. No other details were immediately available.

Gov. Mike Easley's office, which activiated the State Emergency Response Team and dispatched emergency crews, said the tornado destroyed dozens of homes in Riegelwood, a community on the Cape Fear River about 20 miles west of the coastal city of Wilmington.

"You see one that's standing still. It's not touched," Jacobs said of the tornado's impact on a mobile home park in Riegelwood. "And you'll see four or five others that are demolished, and houses on top of cars and cars on top of houses."

Officials at hospitals in Columbus County and neighboring New Hanover County said they were treating 22 people with storm-related injuries and that at least five, including four children, were in critical condition.

Ron Steve, meteorologist with the Weather Service in Wilmington, said the tornado touched down shortly after 6:30 a.m. Thursday after about two inches of rain fell overnight. The storms were expected to clear by the afternoon.

"The one really intense cell at that time of the morning moved onshore near the state line and as it got over land within a few minutes it delivered a very strong circulation that put down a tornado," Steve said.

High winds injured two people, one critically, in Iredell County, The Charlotte Observer reported. Fallen trees blocked roads in Lincoln County, the newspaper reported. Another possible tornado struck about midnight in eastern Gaston County, where a steeple was destroyed and part of the roof ripped off a church. Duke Energy reported nearly 3,000 customers without power in Gaston County, about 1,200 outages in Iredell County, and nearly 900 outages in Lincoln County.

Several accidents and injuries have been reported throughout the Triangle.

The Capitol Police have reported several trees down on the grounds of the Raleigh Capitol Building. No one was injured, but officials tell Eyewitness News that more trees may fall.

Trees have been reported down in North Raleigh near I-540 and Falls of Neuse Road.

Several streets in Durham have been closed because of high standing water.

Several states have been battered by the storms that began Wednesday, unleashing tornadoes and straight-line winds that overturned mobile homes and tractor-trailers, uprooted trees and knocked down power lines. At least one person in Louisiana was killed and several injured in other states.

At least one tornado cut a path about two miles wide and three or four miles long in Greensburg, La., north of New Orleans, toppling trees and damaging buildings and power lines, said Maj. Michael Martin of the St. Helena Parish Sheriff's Office. A 43-year-old man was killed when the trailer he was in was destroyed, he said.

"That home just exploded," said Gordon Burgess, president of neighboring Tangipahoa Parish.

In Montgomery, Ala., high winds destroyed a skating rink Wednesday soon after 31 preschoolers and four adults fled to the only part of the building that turned out to be safe.

One child suffered a broken bone and another a cut to the head, but everyone else emerged unharmed from the crumpled wreck of the Fun Zone Skate Center, which doubled as a day-care facility.

In Mississippi's Lamar County, emergency operations center director James Smith said a possible tornado struck a subdivision outside Sumrall around 2:50 a.m., damaging or destroying 11 homes.

Smith said six people were taken to hospitals from the Sumrall area, and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said two other people were injured in Greene County.

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