US tornadoes kill 34, threaten more damage in South

Thursday, 1 May 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

TUPELO, Miss. (Reuters): At least 34 people across six states were killed in tornadoes unleashed by a ferocious storm system that razed neighborhoods and threatened more destruction in heavily populated parts of the US South on Tuesday. In Arkansas and Mississippi, the hardest hit states, there have been 27 confirmed storm-related deaths and more than 200 people injured over the last three days as tornadoes reduced homes to splinters, snapped trees like twigs and sent trucks flying through the air like toys. Deaths were also reported in Oklahoma and Iowa on Sunday, and Alabama and Tennessee on Monday. Makeshift shelters have been set up for thousands of families forced out of their homes while the National Guard, local police and residents who had lost all their possessions sifted through the rubble looking for more victims.

“People were running around screaming, trying to find their kids. There was nothing left,” Melba Reed said as she described the aftermath of a tornado in Louisville, Mississippi, a town of about 7,000 in the central part of the state. In Tupelo’s Park Hill, a traditionally black and densely populated neighborhood, the sound of chainsaws reverberated in the air as children joined adults to help remove debris and residents took to the streets handing out grilled hotdogs to anyone in need of food. “I am overwhelmed - of course the damage is overwhelming, but the outpouring of people to help lend a land is overwhelming, too,” said Denise Hardin, who works at the Tupelo Housing Authority. A massive area home to tens of millions of people stretching across large parts of the South and into Pennsylvania and Ohio was under some threat from the storm system that spawned the tornadoes, forecasters said. “We will see tornadoes again today and unfortunately, the areas that are under the gun today are the same ones that were under the gun yesterday,” said Bill Bunting, operations chief at the National Weather Service’s Storm Predictions Center in Norman, Oklahoma. Southern and eastern Mississippi as well as central and western Alabama were under the highest threats for tornadoes, damaging winds and hail, he said. Tens of thousands of customers along the path of the storm were without power on Tuesday morning, with the worst outages in parts of Alabama and Georgia, utility companies reported. In western North Carolina, fire department personnel used boats to rescue people from homes and vehicles hit by flash floods during the night. In Arkansas, residents of central Faulkner County, where most of the damage occurred, sorted through the rubble as they tried to piece their lives back together. The White House said President Barack Obama declared a major disaster in Arkansas and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts. Some tornadoes registered an EF-3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale that measures strength, meaning they packed winds of about 150 mph (240 kph), according to preliminary estimates from the National Weather Service in Alabama. In Tupelo, Mississippi, which was in the path of a tornado on Monday, police were going house to house searching for victims and trying to seal any gas leaks that could fuel fires. More than 2,000 houses and 100 commercial properties have been reported damaged. Officials were also picking through the rubble in Lincoln County, Tennessee, near the Alabama state line, where a tornado touched down on Monday, killing two people.

Six hurt, suspect dead in Georgia FedEx facility shooting

Reuters: A FedEx Corp package handler armed with a shotgun opened fire at a shipping facility in suburban Atlanta early on Tuesday, injuring six people before killing himself, apparently with his own weapon, police and hospital officials said.

Three people were in critical condition, two of them with life-threatening injuries, after being shot by the 19-year-old gunman just before 6 a.m. EDT at a FedEx warehouse near the airport in Kennesaw, Georgia, about 30 miles northwest of Atlanta, police and hospital officials said. The shooter, identified as Geddy L. Kramer of Acworth, Georgia, drove up to the security guard shack at the warehouse and shot the guard before entering the warehouse where he shot the other five people, according to police. FedEx employee Liza Aiken told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution she was correcting addresses on packages when she saw a colleague dressed in black and armed with a knife, gun and a cartridge belt strapped across this chest. “He had bullets strapped to his chest like Rambo,” she told the newspaper. “He looked like he was heading into war.” Authorities searching the building after the incident found a Molotov cocktail that appeared to have been left behind by the gunman, said Cobb County Police spokesman Michael Bowman. No motive was given for the attack. Aiken said she previously had reported the man to her superiors after he pointed a work laser at her eye. Michael Hogland, a driver at the facility, told the paper his boss called him early on Tuesday and said a security guard was among the shooting victims. The six patients taken to WellStar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta all had multiple gunshot wounds that appeared to be from a shotgun, Dr. Michael Nitzken said at a news conference. Two men, 28 and 22 years old, as well as a 52-year-old woman were listed in critical condition. Another 28-year-old man was stable, while a 42-year-old woman and 19-year-old man had been treated and were being released, Nitzken said. Hundreds of police from multiple agencies converged on the scene after the shooting, and employees escorted from the facility in a bus tearfully reunited with family members at a nearby skating rink. A FedEx spokeswoman extended condolences to those affected by the shooting. “The situation is now stabilised, and we are focused on the needs of our team members and cooperating with the law enforcement investigation of this tragedy,” said company spokeswoman Shea Leordeanu.