One of the powerful tornadoes that hit New Orleans, Louisiana, on Tuesday night lifted a house with a family inside, including a sick girl who was on a ventilator.
The one-story home, which was shattered, was pushed into the street about 30 feet (9 meters) by the tornado, witnesses told
The Associated Press
.
The girl's parents were able to get out of the rubble, but
had to ask for help to get their trapped daughter out.
The mother, Dea Castellanos, said she felt rain and a light wind while sitting on the living room sofa Tuesday night.
Moments later, she said, the house unexpectedly began to spin.
Destroyed houses, illuminated by the lights of fire engines, are seen after a tornado hit the area in Arabi, Louisiana, on Tuesday, March 22, 2022. Gerald Herbert / AP
Chuck Heirsch, a neighbor, told
The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate
newspaper that he called 911 after seeing his neighbors trying to look for the girl in the rubble.
"They were screaming.
The woman was hysterical.
They were traumatized after taking that '
Wizard of Oz
' trip,” Heirsch said.
Nerissa Ledet, another neighbor, told the newspaper that "all the men in the neighborhood ran to the house."
"I hugged the mother. I tried to comfort her," he said.
Firefighters quickly arrived and pulled out the girl wrapped in a blanket.
The president of the parish of San Bernardo, Guy McInnis, assured that the girl is in the hospital and that "she is well".
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards
declared a state of emergency
on Wednesday.
The declaration applies to the districts of St. Bernard, New Orleans, Jefferson and St. Tammany, areas that suffered significant damage.
A bus goes flying
Another tornado that threatened the New Orleans area also overturned a school bus and ripped the roofs off several homes.
Two people died
when the storm front crossed the south of the country.
Other events caused by the same system caused so much damage in Texas that the governor declared disaster areas in 16 counties, while buildings were destroyed in Alabama, where torrential rains were recorded.
Those killed include a woman north of Dallas, Texas, and a person in St. Bernard Parish
, near New Orleans.
Authorities did not immediately describe how they died.
In addition, multiple people have been injured.
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The city of New Orleans was spared significant damage, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said late Tuesday on Twitter.
The tornadoes touched down in Arabi, just east of the city, and further east in Lacombe, across Lake Pontchartrain.
The National Weather Service said the damage in Arabi had been caused by a tornado with winds of up to 158-206 miles per hour.
[Oklahoma residents experienced moments of horror as several tornadoes passed]
Louisiana activated
300 National Guardsmen to clear roads
and provide security and engineering support.
They joined firefighters and others searching to make sure no one was left behind, said John Rahaim Jr, director of homeland security for the parish.
Meanwhile, the Louisiana governor planned an aerial tour of the damage later Wednesday.
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Residents of severely damaged or destroyed houses in Arabi swept up broken glass and tried to salvage their belongings.
The community, located along the city's Lower 9th Ward, was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and was hit hard again by Hurricane Ida last year.
Stacey Mancuso's family had just repaired the damage caused by Ida, who tore off the roof and caused extensive water damage.
Huddled in the laundry room with her husband, her two children, and her dog, they all survived when the tornado blew away part of her new roof.
[Dozens of people lose everything after the passage of several tornadoes in Texas]
"We are alive. That's all I can say at this point.
We still have four walls and part of the roof.
I consider myself lucky,” Mancuso said.
Still, it's the third time they've suffered major weather damage since Katrina.
Entergy reported that about 3,700 of its customers were still without power on Wednesday.
There was a strong smell of natural gas in the air, and downed power lines forced emergency workers to walk slowly through the wreckage.
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Gene Katz said he, his wife and two children hid in a closet as the tornado tore through, pushing their house off the slab and collapsing their shelter.
“By the time we closed the door, the roof came off, and that was it,” he said.
Amid the destroyed houses, bits of debris hung from power lines and trees.
An aluminum fishing boat was bent into a C shape with its motor across the street.
[High winds and hail hit the state of Alabama]
“I wasn't mentally prepared to see what I was seeing,” said Amy Sims, who got into her car when the tornado warning sounded and headed to the Arabi Heights area to see relatives.
Sims said emergency medics, some in tears, dodged live wires as they went door-to-door through the wrecked houses.
"It looked like a bomb had gone off," he said.
He added that his cousin's house and his family were fine, but the surrounding houses were flattened.
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As the storm front moved east, an apparent tornado ripped through a metal building and shattered windows east of Mobile Bay.
The weather service reported more than eight inches (20 centimeters) of rain in the central Alabama city of Sylacauga overnight.
The roofs of several homes were damaged in Toxey, Alabama, where tornado watches were issued.
The wild weather eased as it moved into South Carolina early Wednesday, but the weather service warned that isolated tornadoes remained possible in southern Georgia.
On Monday, severe weather hit Texas, where multiple tornadoes were recorded along the Interstate 35 corridor. In Elgin, broken trees lined rural roads and bits of metal hung from branches as residents walked cautiously among the clutter.
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JD Harkins, 59, said he saw two tornadoes pass by his Elgin home.
“There used to be a barn there,” he said, pointing to a vacant lot on his uncle's property, littered with scattered debris.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said 10 people were injured by the storms in the Crockett area, while more than a dozen injuries were reported elsewhere.
The Grayson County Office of Emergency Management said a 73-year-old woman died in Sherwood Shores, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) north of Dallas, but did not provide details.