News: Severe Storm Warning for Long Island
(Long Island, N.Y.) The National Weather Service has issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for areas north and west of New York City, including Nassau County. Though no hazardous advisory has been issued for Suffolk County, tornado warnings are also in affect for certain areas around the city. The poor weather system comes from the major storms that hit the southeast of the country, killing over two hundred people in various states.
On Long Island, periods of heavy rain are expected to strike on and off amidst the duration of the storm. The worst of the storm is supposed to breakdown before reaching Suffolk County. Nonetheless, Long Islanders are preparing for the worst; afraid of experiencing what’s left over from the nightmare that hit the south.
Alabama was hit the hardest and suffered a reported one hundred and sixty casualties in the storm’s aftermath. DeKalb County, which is located in the state’s northeast corner, reported the most damage. At least eighteen were killed in Franklin County, located in the northwestern area and fifteen were reported dead in the city of Tuscaloosa.
Tuscaloosa has a population that exceeds 83,000 people and is home to the University of Alabama. A hundred people were reportedly brought into a single hospital during the storm. In some areas of the state the storm appeared between a half-mile and mile in girth.
An estimated one million people were left without power in Alabama and at least one nuclear power plant was safely shut down. The Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a State of Emergency for Alabama, and President Obama is expected to make a visit this Friday. Many compared the recent storms to the “super tornado outbreaks” of 1974.
Georgia was among the states to experience damage from the one hundred and fifty tornadoes that hit the area. Students at the University of Georgia evacuated their dorm rooms at roughly one in the morning, and some were moved to the basement. Sirens blared while trees and power lines hit houses, leaving some homes destroyed to the foundation. No damage or injuries were reported at the university.
Hundreds of homes were flattened and hundreds were injured in this vicious round of storms. Multiple lightning strikes were reported, some of which set homes on fire. Areas from Arkansas to North Carolina were affected by severe thunderstorms.
Thirty people were reported dead in Tennessee, and Chattanooga was among the areas most affected. Parts of southeastern Tennessee depicted a war zone and eight deaths were reported in the state of Virginia. Thirty-two people were killed in Mississippi and over a hundred were reported injured by the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. Over two hundred homes and twenty businesses were damaged, and fifty of the state’s eighty-two counties reported harsh effects of the storm.
Many claim that there isn’t a lot people can do when storms hit that are this large in size. City police across the areas of the southeast were overwhelmed by weather damage and causalities. About two thousand troops from the National Guard were employed to search areas devastated by the storm and aid the local responders in cleaning up the area.
