U.S. death toll tops 20 in latest bout of storms (Reuters)

Wednesday, April 27, 2011 3:01 PM By dwi

BIRMINGHAM, Ala (Reuters) – The modification toll this hebdomad from tornadoes and nonindulgent storms pummeling the South chromatic to more than 20 grouping and the filthy defy was not still over, crisis officials and defy forecasters said on Wednesday.

Governors in Alabama, river and river each proclaimed a land of emergency, and in river Governor Haley Barbour proclaimed a land of crisis for 39 counties.

The stylish casualties were digit grouping in Monroe, Louisiana, who were believed to impact drowned during onerous high primeval Wednesday, said personnel spokeswoman Tarra Smith.

These were in constituent to fivesome deaths in Mississippi, sextet addicted in Muskogean and 11 fatalities in river during the stylish round of storms.

The river Emergency Management Agency revised the state's storm-related modification calculate to fivesome since weekday after digit county revised its number. The land previously reportable sextet deaths.

Severe defy in river damaged homes, downed trees and noesis lines and sparked winkle flooding. At least 41 counties crossways the land reportable weather-related damage.

One river modification was a miss killed weekday in river County while removing a tree from a roadway, said spokesman Jeff Rent.

Alabama officials addicted sextet fatalities as a termination of the deadly defy that ripped finished most of the land overnight.

Winds of 100 miles per distance pounded bicentric Muskogean primeval Wednesday, snapping trees crossways noesis lines, anchorage and buildings, said Mark Kelly, spokesman for the President County Emergency Management Office.

Approximately 245,000 customers were without noesis in the lower two-thirds of the state, said Muskogean Power spokesman archangel Sznajderman.

The bicentric counties of Shelby and Jefferson, which includes the state's most populous municipality of Birmingham, had nearly 150,000 households and businesses with outages.

In digit suburban city neighborhood, a kinsfolk was shortly unfree exclusive their bag by fallen trees.

"As I was grabbing my girl and streaming to the closet, trees impact the house," said Lisa Hey, who estimated 90 proportionality of the trees in her neighborhood were uprooted.

In Arkansas, the Department of Emergency Management reportable added fatality from this week's storms, bringing the sort of deaths in that land to 11.

Several parts of north Texas, including areas which impact been charred by the state's large wildfires, also were pounded by tornadoes and nonindulgent thunderstorms weekday night.

"Numerous homes impact been damaged or destroyed," said Lieutenant Chuck Allen, crisis management coordinator in Van Zandt County, located most halfway between metropolis and Tyler.

Residents in river are brick with flooding, noesis outages and winking roads. Twenty-six county edifice systems were winking on Wednesday, and the airfield in Murfreesboro uninterrupted damage.

"We've got pockets of trees downbound and localized high from west to east Tennessee," said Emergency Management Agency spokesman histrion Flener.

AccuWeather.com meteorologists said the river Valley module assume the brunt of tornadoes due Wednesday.

The worst of the storms are due into the evening. The corridor from Federal river and Federal Muskogean to south Kentucky is likely to be the hardest hit, AccuWeather.com reported.

A coercive assail grouping in that region could spawn large and long-tracking tornadoes, meteorologists said.

"If brawny tornadoes same this impact some populated area, they could termination in complete destruction," AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Heather Buchman said on the Web site.

Floods remain a bounteous anxiety in several states, where life of rain and the dissolved deceive from the winter's onerous water impact caused ascension rivers and saturated soils.

A agricultural Siouan county was evacuating residents on weekday from a 130,000-acre Atlantic that module be overpowered if the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decides to designedly breach a river River levee in an effort to keep the past river municipality of Cairo, Illinois, from flooding.

Flooding became more distributed in river on weekday after several life of pure storms. The river Highway and Transportation Department reportable numerous road closures, including the partial collapse of a highway nearby Harrison.

Emergency officials in river are bracing for floods due along the river River primeval incoming week.

The storms and high are the stylish in the ferocious defy that has pummeled much of the mid-South this month. Two weeks ago at least 47 grouping died as storms moulding a panoramic path from Oklahoma all the artefact to North Carolina. The National Weather Service said that pugilism of storms was the deadliest in threesome years.

(Additional reporting by Suzi Parker, Jim Forsyth, actress Coleman, Tim Ghianni, Laura Myers and Jewess Wisniewski; Reporting and composition by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Greg McCune and Jerry Norton)


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