Severe weather is once again expected to rip through parts of the southeast on Friday as central Florida prepares for strong showers and thunderstorms while tornadoes, gale-force winds, hail, and flash flooding are forecast for the Southern Plains and lower Mississippi Valley.
Wind gusts of up to 68 miles per hour have been reported in Port Canaveral, Florida, on Friday afternoon as the peninsula gears up for strong storms.
The extreme weather comes just a day after a homeless man in northern Florida was killed when a tree fell on him during a storm.
Central Florida is likely to get doused with heavy rains, scattered thunderstorms, and even isolated tornadoes on Friday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service
Severe weather is also forecast for parts of the Southern Plains including Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas
The Southeastern United States has recently been battered by severe weather, with more expected into Friday night
Wind gusts nearing 70mph were reported in some parts of Central Florida on Friday
The storm downed trees and knocked out power to thousands of residents, authorities said Friday.
The unidentified man was killed on Thursday evening when a large pine tree fell on him in a wooded area in metro Tallahassee, according to the Leon County Sheriff’s Office.
Another man was injured.
By the time emergency crews reached him, ‘he was beyond help at that time,’ Deputy Shade McMillian, a spokesman for the agency, said Friday.
The man’s identity hasn’t yet been released because next of kin haven’t been notified, McMillian said.
At least one tornado touched down on Thursday evening in the Florida Panhandle as warnings were issued throughout the region, officials said.
Radar confirmed a tornado was on the ground north of Tallahassee near Interstate 10, according to a National Weather Service post on Twitter.
No serious injuries or damage was immediately reported.
Twitter users were posting photos of downed trees in the area, and law enforcement was warning people to stay away from downed power lines.
Severe weather blew through the South on Thursday after killing at least seven people in Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana, including a worker at a factory hit by an apparent tornado, a man whose car was blown off the road and a man who went outside to grab a trash can and was swept away in a flood.
More than 150,000 businesses and homes from Texas to Georgia were without power as the severe weather blew eastward, snapping utility lines as trees fell, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
In Georgia, an a suspected tornado swept through the city of Adel in Cook County, tearing off roofs and flipping at least one car and a small plane.
Johnny West, Cook County´s emergency management director, told The Valdosta Daily Times there was damage throughout the county and ‘heavy damage’ in the city.
At least seven people were killed after storms and tornadoes swept through Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana on Wednesday as forecasters warn nearly 40 million people to brace for even more severe weather on Thursday. A large tree is uprooted in front of a destroyed home on Thursday in Onalaska, Texas
David Maynard sifts through the rubble searching for his wallet on Thursday, after a tornado destroyed his home in Onalaska, Texas
Part of the roof of a home is seen destroyed on Thursday after a tornado tore through the Onalaska, Texas, area on Wednesday evening
Major damage is seen at a home in the aftermath of Wednesday’s tornado as residents sift through rubble on Thursday in Onalaska, Texas
A dog walks past trailers that were overturned during Wednesday’s severe storm in Onalaska, Texas
Photos submitted to WALB-TV show trees snapped in half and metal roofing material draped over some utility lines still standing.
Damage was caused by a combination of straight-line winds and the tornado, said Wright Dobbs, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service´s Tallahassee, Florida, office.
There were no reports of injuries or deaths.
At least one suspected tornado touched down Thursday evening north of Tallahassee near Interstate 10, according weather officials.
Twitter users were posting photos of downed trees in the area, and authorities warned people to stay away from downed power lines.
Winds peeled roofing material off a church in Alabama and sent an awning crashing onto a car at a gas station.
In Adel, Georgia, pieces of metal flew off a building during a possible twister.
About 70 miles east of Birmingham in Anniston, a firefighter and an emergency medical worker were injured when part of a tree fell atop them while they were rescuing a person who was trapped inside a home by a tree that fell during a storm, Anniston EMS said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
The workers and the resident were all taken to a hospital, but none of the injuries was life-threatening, the agency said.
Forecasters said additional damage was possible from another wave of storms.
Earlier, an apparent tornado killed three people and injured 20 to 30 more in and around the southeast Texas town of Onalaska.
Suspected twisters destroyed 46 homes and damaged another 245 in the surrounding area, according to Polk County Judge Sydney Murphy.
The judge told the Beaumont Enterprise on Thursday that the dead included a woman in her 20s, a man in his 50s and another man whose age they don’t know.
‘It took me 45 minutes to climb through the roof to get out,’ said Charles Stephens of Onalaska.
He told the Houston Chronicle that he and his wife were holed up in their bathroom when a large pine tree fell through their roof Wednesday night, and he had to use a hatchet free his wife from the debris.
Homes are seen destroyed after Wednesday’s tornado struck the Mansfield, Louisiana, area
A man and his dog walk among the debris of their destroyed home in Woodworth, Louisiana, after a tornado tore through the area
A pair of Wicked Witch of the East legs are perched on the back of a chair of a destroyed home after a tornado ripped through Onalaska, Texas
Fallen trees are seen blocking a roadway in Onalaska, Texas, after a tornado tore through the area on Wednesday
A fallen tree is seen near a home in Onalaska, Texas, just a day after tornadoes swept through the area
Nine suspected tornadoes touched down in southern Oklahoma, National Weather Service meteorologist Alex Zwink said.
One of them caused widespread damage across the town of Madill, near the Red River, said Donny Raley, the city´s emergency manager.
Just outside town, workers were leaving for the day from J&I Manufacturing, which makes trailers, when a suspected twister hit.
The body of a worker was later found about a fourth of a mile away, Marshall County Emergency Management Director Robert Chaney said.
A second person died in Madill when the tornado blew his vehicle off a highway: The body of Chad L. Weyant, 46, of Madill was found in the median and his vehicle in a nearby field, according to an Oklahoma Highway Patrol report.
A Louisiana man was later found dead after a witness saw him try to retrieve a trash can from water near a drainage ditch; He lost his footing and was swept away by floodwaters, DeSoto Parish Sheriff Jayson Richardson told The Shreveport Times.
‘There was some pretty extreme flooding here in Mansfield. Water like I’ve not seen in many, many years, if ever,’ the sheriff told the newspaper.
‘Basically the water rose really fast and we had to rescue some people out of homes. I think we had about 20 or so homes that people were flooded in.’
News outlets reported that Becky Carter Roberts, 67, was killed during a storm in Lecompte, Louisiana, 15 miles south of Alexandria, but the Rapides Parish Sheriff´s Office didn’t immediately say how she died.
Louisiana State University System President Tom Galligan said the Alexandria campus lost power and water because of the storms.
He said the approximately 40 students remaining on campus amid the coronavirus outbreak were being moved Thursday to a nearby hotel until campus services can be restored.