Two die as powerful storms ravage US South

WSB-TV in Atlanta aired footage of an enormous funnel cloud bearing down on Adairsville where the storm ripped through the city's downtown. Winds flattened homes and wiped out parts of a large manufacturing plant in the city about 60 miles (96 kilometers) northwest of Atlanta. Pieces of insulation hung from trees and power poles, and a bank was missing a big chunk of its roof.

A 51-year-old man was killed when a tree crashed through the mobile home roof, and nine were hospitalized for minor injuries, emergency management officials said. Residents said no traces remained of some roadside produce stands — a common sight on rural Georgia's back roads. One other death was reported in Tennessee when an uprooted tree fell onto a storage shed where a man had taken shelter.

The storms tossed vehicles on Interstate 75 onto their roofs, closing the highway for a time.

In Adairsville, the debris in one yard showed just how dangerous the storm had been: a bathtub, table, rolls of toilet paper and lumber lay in the grass next to what appeared to be a roof. Sheets of metal dangled from a large tree like ornaments.

“The sky was swirling,” said Theresa Chitwood, who owns the Adairsville Travel Plaza. She said she went outside to move her car because she thought it was going to hail. Instead, the storm decimated a building behind the plaza. Wind gusts were powerful enough to flip several tractor-trailers onto their sides in the parking lot.

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