At least two dead, thousands without power after storms hit Southeast

Residents in the Southeast, from Texas to South Carolina, continued to clean up and asses damage after deadly storms hit the area. As of Wednesday morning, the death toll from Tuesday’s storms sat at two. 71-year-old W.M. Solomon died when storm winds knocked a tree onto his east Texas home.

“Great guy. He was a cowboy and anytime you needed help he would help you,” Gary Richey, Solomon’s neighbor, said Tuesday. “He was the best neighbor you could ask for. We’ll miss him.”

The other reported death was a woman in Bryan County, Georgia, just west of Savannah. She was found amid the shredded wreckage of her mobile home.

“It was just completely ripped to pieces,” Bryan County Coroner Bill Cox said Wednesday. “It’s like it exploded.” The woman’s husband was taken to the hospital with injuries.

According to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide, Texas and Georgia have experienced over 11,000 power outages as of noon EST Wednesday.

“There was a power line laying across the road and they said there was a tornado that touched down in this path,” Early County, Georgia resident Julie Trawick said Tuesday.

Tornadoes were also reported in South Carolina, and officials in Alabama said they were sending survey teams to examine potential tornado damage. Meanwhile In Mississippi, fallen trees and limbs closed a stretch of highway for hours in Newton County.

Residents in the Southeast are not out of the woods for more storms yet. The national Storm Prediction Center said several more tornadoes are expected across a large part of the South on Wednesday. Parts of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee will be at greatest risk of severe weather. That area of heightened risk includes several large cities, including Atlanta; Birmingham, Alabama; and Knoxville, Tennessee.