By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times –
LOS ANGELES — At least three people were killed Friday in southern Indiana when tornadoes plowed through the region, officials reported.
The deaths were all in Jefferson County, said John Erickson, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, in a telephone interview. No other details were immediately available.
The fatalities occurred as more than a dozen reported tornadoes slashed through parts of about nine states, causing injuries and damage. Officials in many areas were bracing for a long evening and night of severe weather.
Southern Indiana was especially hard hit, particularly in Henryville, where a school was struck, Erickson said. Parts of Jefferson, Washington and Clark counties, all near the border with Kentucky, were affected as well. Marysville, in Clark County, was extensively damaged, officials said.
“That’s the information we have, that Marysville is no longer,” said Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, in an interview Friday afternoon with CNN.
Other states — from Alabama to Indiana, and east from Tennessee and Kentucky — also reported apparent tornado strikes, according to the National Weather Service.
The service has been posting tornado warnings and watches throughout the day, a grim capstone to a week in which 13 deaths have been blamed on tornado activity in the Midwest and South. More than 100 injuries have been reported, with major damage in many states.
The Chattanooga and Knoxville areas of Tennessee were among those reporting damage and injuries, said Dean Flener, a spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, in a telephone interview.
“We’ve had a wave of storms through East Tennessee with eight counties reporting possible tornadoes,” he said. “We’re waiting for another wave of storms to hit this afternoon.”
National Weather Service officials were on the scene to check for tornado activity, he said.
“We’re still at the beginning of this event,” Flener said. His state had five presidential declarations of states of emergency last year, the most of any state in the nation, he said. “Every disaster is unique to itself. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Indiana’s Erickson said that early reports show heavy damage in the southern portion of the state, especially in Posey County and Clark County, where Marysville and Henryville are located.
“The weather is still coming through,” he said “Things are pretty hairy.”
Other apparent tornado sightings were reported in Kentucky and in Alabama, where at least 10 injuries were counted in the Huntsville area including Limestone and Madison counties.