Four people died in Kentucky on Friday, one in Tennessee, three in Alabama, and one person was found dead in Arkansas, officials said. One person in Mississippi died in severe weather Thursday.
More than 650,000 homes and businesses in Tennessee and Kentucky states were without power early Saturday, hours after the weather hit, according to outage tracking website Poweoutage.us.
“We have already lost way too many people due to flooding, tornadoes and other weather events, so we want everybody to be safe today,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said at a Friday morning news conference.
He signed a state of emergency to help get assistance to where it is needed, including putting 400 National Guard members on notice.
The deaths in Kentucky happened in Simpson, Edmonson, Logan and Fayette counties, according to Beshear and the Fayette County coroner's office.
In Fayette County, a woman was killed when a tree fell in high winds onto her vehicle, the coroner's office said.
In Humphreys County, Tennessee, a man was found dead in a car with a tree on it Friday, the sheriff's office said, NBC News reported.
The top of the tree fell around 50 feet and landed on the front of the vehicle. There were straight-line winds of 50 to 60 mph at the time, the office said.
The three deaths in Alabama involved falling trees or falling tree limbs Friday in Talladega, Lexington and Huntsville, officials said.
In Yazoo County, Mississippi, a person was killed when a tree fell on a vehicle Thursday, according to the agency, known as MEMA.
In Scott County, Arkansas, a man was found dead Friday morning near a truck submerged in floodwaters, the sheriff's office said.
More than 14 million people had been under high-wind warnings Friday, but by early Saturday that number was down to around 3 million, in southeastern Ohio, southern Pennsylvania, and western Virginia, according to the National Weather Service. Wind advisories covered other areas.
MNA/PR
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