Storms Rake Southeast

Thousands of people were without power early Friday after powerful storms slammed into the Southeast and Plains states, toppling trees and causing flash flooding. Dozens of people were forced to flee their homes.

It was the second day of violent weather in the region. Residents of Shady Grove, Tenn., hit by severe storms and twister-like winds, spent much of Thursday mopping up.

They still were cleaning up Friday in Hickman County, southeast of Nashville, where trailers were overturned and trees were twisted, reports CBS affilate WTVF.

"It happened so fast," resident Mark Scarborough said. "It's almost like it dropped out of the sky right on top of us."

More than 200,000 people in the Carolinas were without power late Thursday or early Friday. Schools in two North Carolina counties were closed, and more than 100 homes were damaged in Orange County, where residents were advised to boil their water because the treatment center was without power.

"I could see the clouds rolling over and over like a Ferris wheel," said Mike Parrish, a mechanic at Friendly Center Tire in High Point. "Then all of a sudden, it just got pitch black and I couldn't see 15 feet in front of me with the wind whipping the rain around sideways."

A few miles away, at St. Pius Tenth Catholic School in Greensboro, kindergarten teacher June Kemp saw a huge, dark mass knock down a row of seven trees before skipping across the street and shearing off the top of another tree.

"It was more than just an ordinary storm to me," Kemp said. "It was a huge gray mass eating up all the trees. It was all over in 7 seconds. There was no time to react. It was really scary."

Damage was so severe that it might take four days to restore power to some areas, Duke Power spokesman Danny Gibbs said. Power outages caused millions of gallons of wastewater to overflow from treatment plants into tributaries of the Haw River, state officials said.
Two men were injured when the storm forced their small plane to crash in a parking lot near Chapel Hill, N.C.

The storms had earlier moved through Tennessee with hail, heavy rains and 70 mph winds. Nearly 4 inches of rain fell in Nashville, where a 35-year-old man died after his car hydroplaned on Interstate 24 and was struck by two tractor-trailers.

High water forced 38 residents to evacuate an assisted living center near Franklin, south of Nashville. A year-old toddler escaped serious injury after being trapped for 90 minutes under an uprooted oak tree that crashed into her bedroom while she slept.

Adrianna Sandlen was hospitalized with scrapes and bruises.

In Utah late Thursday, a tornado ripped roofs of a block of stores in a suburb of Salt Lake City. The storm was apparently on the ground for a short period of time in the Holladay area, according to Brian McInerney, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service.

"Thins started to shake and we all dived under cars and it went over us and my customers got real scared," said Merle Smith, a salesman at a Goodyear Auto Tire Center, where part of the roof was torn off by the tornado and several car windows were blown out.

McInerney said the storm knocked out power to the area.

Storms early Thursday also brought high wind, tornadoes and lightning to Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Lightning caused an oil tank battery to explode about 50 miles east of Oklahoma City in Okfuskee County, sheriff's dispatcher Shawn Lane said. He said a tornado hit near Okmulgee but caused no damage.

At Calico Rock, Ark., the upper layer of the roof of a state prison was damaged. Fifty-four inmates were moved to the unit's gymnasium until repairs were completed, officials said.

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