Cleanup began in battered parts of the South and Midwest after a sprawling storm system produced ferocious winds and heavy snow that caused widespread damage and caused at least 12 deaths before racing through the Northeast on Saturday, CBS News reported.
Three people were killed by falling trees in Alabama as severe weather swept through the state. In Mississippi, a woman died inside her SUV after a rotted tree branch struck her vehicle, and in Arkansas, a man drowned after he drove into high floodwaters. Two weather-related deaths were also reported in Tennessee, including a vehicle passenger who died near the western Tennessee town of Waverly, the Humphreys County Sheriff's Office reports.
Five weather-related deaths also were reported in Kentucky in four different counties as storms with straight-line winds moved through the state. Gov. Andy Beshear had declared a state of emergency before the storm and on Friday evening the mayor of Louisville, Craig Greenberg, followed suit because of the severe storms, high winds, widespread damage, and danger to lives and property.
More than 466,000 utility customers in Kentucky and Michigan were without power as of Saturday night, according to the utility tracking website PowerOutage.us. More than 276,000 of those customers were in Kentucky, and the governor warned it would take days for utility crews to fully restore service.
RHM/PR