Relentless, life-threatening weather conditions persisted into Sunday in several states, including the potential of severe floods in Memphis, Tennessee and Little Rock, Arkansas, as well as tornado watches in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.
Since Wednesday, at least 23 people have died as a result of the outbreak of severe weather, including a 9-year-old kid in Kentucky who was carried away by floodwaters while walking to a bus stop, and many persons murdered in southwestern Tennessee after a powerful EF-3 tornado slammed through the city of Selmer.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp expressed his condolences Sunday evening, after two people were murdered when a tree fell on them at a Georgia golf course.
“Marty, the girls, and I are saddened by the tragic deaths of two Georgians in Muscogee County today as a result of the severe weather. We ask that you join us in keeping their loved ones in our thoughts and prayers, along with all those responding to storm damage,” Kemp said.
The Arkansas Division of Emergency Management reported the state’s first storm-related fatality, a 5-year-old child discovered in a residence in southwest Little Rock. The government did not disclose any other information about the child’s death, but did say it was due “to the ongoing severe weather in Arkansas.”
In Missouri, a 16-year-old firefighter responding to a reported water rescue was killed in a car accident on Friday in Beaufort, some 60 miles west of St. Louis, according to the Beaufort-Leslie Fire Protection District and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
The firefighter was identified as Chevy Gall.
“Tonight was a fire chief’s worst nightmare,” Beaufort-Leslie Fire Protection District Chief Terry Feth said in a statement on Friday. “We are heartbroken by the loss of one of our own.”
Another local fire chief, 68-year-old Garry Moore, was killed while assisting a stranded car on Wednesday, according to Missouri officials. Moore was the chief of the Whitewater Fire Protection District.
The death toll is 10 in Tennessee, three in Missouri, two in Kentucky, and one apiece in Indiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said on social media Sunday that there was one storm-related death in his state and that damage had been reported in 14 Mississippi counties.
“Tragically, one fatality was reported in Jasper County. Additionally, one injury was reported in Pontotoc County. Please pray for these Mississippians and their families,” Reeves said.
The system, which had been nearly stationary over parts of the South and Midwest for the past four days, bringing a relentless stretch of life-threatening weather conditions, was moving eastward across the Southeast Sunday afternoon, bringing heavy rain and thunderstorms from the northern Gulf Coast up into southern Appalachia.
