Tornadoes kill three, injure dozens in Louisiana, Mississippi
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Several tornadoes lashed southern Louisiana and Mississippi on Tuesday, killing at least three people and injuring more than 30 as the storms destroyed dozens of homes and businesses and toppled a water tower, weather and emergency officials said.
Hardest hit in Louisiana was the Mississippi River hamlet of Convent, where 90 percent of the estimated 160 mobile homes at the Sugar Hill trailer park were demolished, state police superintendent Colonel Mike Edmonson told a news conference.
“This is some of the worst damage that I’ve seen in my 36 years with the state police,” Edmonson said.
Governor John Bel Edwards said two people were known to have died at the trailer park and two or three others were reported unaccounted for. Rescue crews with dogs combed through debris searching for anyone who might have been trapped.
Authorities said they hoped the missing might turn up later in area hospitals or elsewhere among the survivors in Convent, located about 60 miles (100 km) west of New Orleans.
“These travel trailers were picked up, thrown a considerable distance and just mangled,” Edwards said after surveying the damage. He said it was “a minor miracle” the casualty toll was not higher because most of the trailers were occupied when the storm hit.
The National Weather Service confirmed one other fatality near the southern Mississippi town of Purvis, where a mobile home was destroyed.
Acadian ambulance services in Louisiana said it had transported 31 people to area hospitals in St. James Parish, most of them from the trailer park, and five others from neighboring parishes, according to the agency’s Twitter feed.
There were additional reports of survivors being taken to hospitals in private cars, and other ambulance operators were responding to the emergency, indicating the tally of injuries would likely climb higher.
The governor declared a state of emergency in seven parishes that bore the brunt of the storms.
