Southern tornado death toll hits 34 as storm system heads east

As a deadly storm system continued its eastward trek Tuesday, the South began tallying its losses from a tornado outbreak that killed at least 34 people in a swath from Arkansas, Oklahoma and Iowa to Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.
The harsh weather carved a wound from the Midwest and eastward, bringing severe thunderstorms, fierce winds and large hail, with the latest tornadoes damaging homes in North Carolina on Tuesday evening. Significant portions of Alabama and Mississippi remained under tornado watch.
Hundreds of injuries have been reported since Sunday as homes and buildings toppled, mobile homes were tossed like toys and heavy vehicles twisted in the wind.
This week's tornadoes occurred near the anniversary of a 2011 outbreak that left more than 350 people dead across the South. In Alabama, more than 250 people died April 27, 2011, from more than 60 twisters.
This year's tornado season had a much less severe start but it was still deadly. Dozens of tornadoes have touched down in recent days, with the majority scouring central Mississippi and northern Alabama on Monday.
Arkansas, especially in the Little Rock-area towns of Vilonia and Mayflower, was especially hard hit Sunday with 15 deaths in three counties. A sequence of at least two tornadoes scoured a nearly straight line of damage through the central part of the state, bringing winds in excess of 136 mph and carving a track more than half a mile wide in places.
Speaking in Washington on Tuesday, Arkansas Republican Rep. Steve Womack said, "The state's in a state of shock right now." Womack, whose district northwest of Little Rock was spared much of the damage, added, "These will try your souls."
The dangerous storms moved through Mississippi, where tornadoes began to strike Monday afternoon through the evening. Tupelo, a community of about 35,000 people in northeastern Mississippi, was hard hit and every building in a two-block area was damaged, officials told television reporters.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-southern-tornadoes-20140430-story.html