ATKINS, Ark. — Tornadoes across four Southern states tore through homes, ripped off a shopping mall’s roof and blew apart warehouses in a rare spasm of violent winter weather that killed at least 22 people and injured dozens.
The twisters that slammed Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky were part of a line of storms that raged across the nation’s midsection at the end of a day of Super Tuesday primaries in several states. Candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee even paused their victory speeches to remember the victims.
An Arkansas couple and their 11-year-old daughter were killed in their home after a tornado touched down near the center of Atkins, a community along the Arkansas River in the central part of the state, the Pope County Sheriff’s Office said. Authorities across Arkansas, where at least 11 people died, searched through the night for victims.
“This was an extraordinary night,” said Gov. Mike Beebe. “When it’s compounded by darkness, that makes it that much more difficult.”
Authorities in Tennessee said storms killed at least eight people there, and Kentucky State Trooper Stuart Recke said three adults died outside Greenville, in the western part of the state. At least 60 people were injured in the four states, authorities said.
Former governor grieves
The power was knocked out briefly at a Little Rock convention hall that hosted a watch party for GOP candidate Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor.
“While we hope tonight is a time for us to celebrate election results, we are reminded that nothing is as important as the lives of these fellow Arkansans, and our hearts go out to their families,” Huckabee said.
At the W.J. Matthews Civic Center in Atkins, a shelter was empty except for an American Red Cross volunteers and a single touchscreen voting machine. The civic center had hosted an election precinct earlier Tuesday.
Cellphone pictures sent to television stations showed a dark, broad funnel approaching Atkins. Traffic was snarled on nearby Interstate 40.
At least six tornadoes touched down between Oxford, Miss., and Jackson, Tenn., said Richard Okulski of the National Weather Service in Memphis.
One storm tore a large part of a wall at Hickory Ridge Mall in Memphis, Tenn. Steve Cole of the Memphis Police Department said a few people took shelter under a bridge and were washed away but were pulled out of the Wolf River with only scrapes.
