- A suspected tornado killed one person in Georgia, and strong winds were blamed for the other death in Texas.
- Parts of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee will be at greatest risk of severe weather Wednesday.
- More severe weather is expected on Thursday, forecasters said.
PEMBROKE, Ga. – Mary Anna Hite, 76, watched the tornado touched down in Pembroke, Georgia, from the drive-through window in her business, PAC Fiber, a local broadband company.
“I told myself this can’t be happening,” she told USA TODAY.
She watched the tornado dipped to the ground and back up two miles away from her business. Trucks in a nearby parking lot were lifted and residents near the business had tree branches fallen on their homes.
“Coming out and seeing the destruction has me still in shock.” Hite said. “This is such an unusual occurrence.”
Tuesday’s tornado was part of powerful storms that killed at least two people across the South, and the region braced for yet another day of severe weather on Wednesday. The tornado killed at least one person in Georgia, and strong winds were blamed for the other death in Texas, authorities said.
More than 7,000 customers in Texas and more than 5,000 in Georgia remained without power early Wednesday, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.
The severe weather threat was forecast to continue into Wednesday, as the Storm Prediction Center warned that “severe thunderstorms capable of producing swaths of damaging gusts, large hail, and several tornadoes are expected across the Southeast states and near the southern Appalachians this afternoon and evening.”
Parts of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee will be at greatest risk of severe weather Wednesday. That area of heightened risk includes several large cities, including Atlanta; Birmingham, Ala.; and Knoxville, Tennessee.
“The atmosphere will be primed again for more severe storms as we go through Wednesday,” said Jared Guyer, a forecaster at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
Flash flooding will also be a concern Wednesday across portions of Georgia, where a flood watch was in effect. The risk for flooding is likely to be greatest in locations that got doused Tuesday and where thunderstorms move over the same areas for several hours, AccuWeather said.
WHAT IS A FLASH FLOOD WATCH OR WARNING?:Here’s what to know about this deadly weather hazard
Tuesday, in eastern Texas, WM Soloman, 71, died when storm winds toppled a tree onto his home in Whitehouse, about 100 miles southeast of Dallas, Whitehouse Mayor James Wansley said.
A woman also died Tuesday evening in Pembroke, about 30 miles from Savannah, where a tornado ripped part of the roof from the Bryan County courthouse, destroyed the entrance to a local government building across the street and damaged homes in nearby neighborhoods, said Matthew Kent , a county government spokesman.
The woman, whose name has not been released, was found dead Tuesday night amid the shredded wreckage of her mobile home in the unincorporated community of Ellabell, said Bryan County Coroner Bill Cox.
“It was just completely ripped to pieces,” Cox said Wednesday. “It’s like it exploded.”
WHAT IS A TORNADO?:Everything you need to know about these violent storms
Bobbi Ussery, 67, said they’ve had so many close calls with tornadoes that she ignored the warnings and alerts until it was too late. Her home de ella, where she’s lived the last 26 years, was hit by a falling tree branch.
Ussery said she kept thinking “it’ll pass us” until her daughter, Toni Ussery, said, “Momma, it’s here!”
They went into the hallway of the house when they heard a big bang.
“I’ve never witnessed anything like this,” Toni Ussery, 44, told USA TODAY.
Bobbi Ussery said the tornado was “here and gone so fast.” She added she feels bad for the people in the community who lost everything.
“To go over there to see it will make you cry,” she said.
More severe weather is expected on Thursday, forecasters said, mainly in eastern portions of North Carolina and Virginia and in central Florida.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism