JACKSON, Miss. — A trail of damage was left at an Army post, schools and businesses were closed for a second day, and a damaged women’s prison was running partly on backup power Wednesday after two days of storms unleashed tornadoes and flooding in the South and dumped heavy snow in the Midwest.
The most recent apparent twister knocked down some trees and damaged vehicles and buildings at Fort Stewart in southeast Georgia on Wednesday evening, spokesman Kevin Larson said. He said the extent of the damage was not immediately known, but there were no reports of injuries.
In western Alabama, the administration building at the Federal Correctional Institution Aliceville was running on a generator Wednesday, a day after a tornado struck the low-security lockup housing about 1,850 inmates, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. No employees or inmates were hurt, the statement said.
The National Weather Service in Birmingham reported a “confirmed large and destructive tornado” on the ground in the same general area as the women’s prison, about 45 miles west of Tuscaloosa. Minor injuries were reported. More than a dozen homes were destroyed by a tornado that touched down in McMullen on Tuesday evening, the National Weather Service said.
In Mississippi, a confirmed tornado was reported just before 3:30 p.m. Tuesday in largely rural areas in the eastern part of the state, said Greg Flynn, spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
In west Tennessee, high winds damaged several homes and several buildings at Crockett County High School, the National Weather Service said.
Farther west, a snowstorm buried parts of Colorado and Nebraska in more than a foot of snow Tuesday before crawling into the Upper Midwest.
Several Nebraska schools and businesses remained closed a second day Wednesday as workers tried to reopen snow-covered roads. More than 18 inches of snow was recorded in Grand Island, Neb., and nearly 16 inches in nearby Hastings, the National Weather Service said.
The northeastern Nebraska communities of Verdigre and Wayne had 16 inches of snow, while 14 inches was reported in Norfolk. Utilities reported that electricity has been restored to almost all of the more than 20,000 customers who’d lost power.
The combination of snow in one part of the country and severe thunderstorms in another isn’t unusual when a powerful system moves across the country, said Greg Carbin with the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.
“February can feature some exciting dynamics in the atmosphere,” Carbin said. “This system we’ve had our eye on since it was in the Pacific.”
