At a Glance
- A man and a 3-year-old child died when a tree fell on their home near Tuscaloosa, officials said.
- Ten more people died in a crash that may have been caused by the storm, a coroner said.
- A tornado destroyed or damaged 50 homes in Brewton and East Brewton, Alabama.
- Possible tornadoes damaged homes in Florida's Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.
- High-water rescues were carried out in Slidell, Louisiana.
Tropical Storm Claudette left a deadly trail of damage across parts of Alabama and Florida on Saturday that left at least 13 people dead in Alabama.
Ten of them, including nine children, died in a crash Saturday on Interstate 65 near Greenville, Alabama, that Butler County Coroner Wayne Garlock said was likely caused when the vehicles hydroplaned on wet roads, the Associated Press reported.
Eight of the victims, girls ages 4 to 17, were in a vehicle from the Tallapoosa County Girls Ranch, Garlock told al.com. Bystanders were unable to get the girls out of the burning vehicle, he said. A 29-year-old man and his 9-month-old were killed in the other vehicle, Garlock said.
The Tuscaloosa Violent Crime Unit said a falling tree killed a 24-year-old man and a 3-year-old boy in their home just outside of the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, city limits, late Saturday, al.com reported.
Dangerous flooding was reported, too.
A 23-year-old woman drowned after her car was swept into a creek in Fort Payne, Alabama, in the far northeastern corner of the state, WHNT reported.
"We are receiving calls of flooding from every area of the city. A few drivers have been unable to exit vehicles that have stalled in floodwater," the Tuscaloosa Police Department said in a Facebook post. "Along with Tuscaloosa Fire and Rescue, we’ve had multiple reports of water surrounding and coming into homes in many different areas of the city."
(FORECAST: The Latest on Tropical Storm Claudette)
Flooded vehicles, downed trees and a mudslide blocked roads throughout the city, the department said in a second post.
In the nearby city of Northport, more than 20 people were rescued by boat when floodwaters as deep as 6 feet entered homes along Hunter Creek Road, WVUA reported.
Photos from a mobile home park along Hunter Creek Road showed homes washed off their foundations, a porch ripped from a house, an overturned building and a support beam smashed through a car window.
Flooding was also reported in Birmingham.
Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service Capt. Bryan Harrell said crews were searching for a man who was possibly swept away by floodwaters in the Pebble Creek Parkway area, al.com reported. Sebastian Carrillo with Birmingham Fire and Rescue told WBRC boat crews were searching the creek on Sunday.
Earlier Saturday, a tornado destroyed or badly damaged 50 homes in the small towns of Brewton and East Brewton, Alabama, about 48 miles north of Pensacola, Florida.
"We've got probably about 50 homes pretty much destroyed," Escambia County, Alabama, Sheriff Heath Jackson told weather.com in a phone call Saturday afternoon.
Three people were injured, two of them "pretty critically," Jackson said.
The tornado also ripped the roof off of a high school gym, according to the Alabama News Network.
U.S. Highway 29 in East Brewton was closed for several hours because of downed power lines in the roadway.
Florida
Claudette also impacted Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in Florida.
A possible tornado knocked trees down on at least two houses in Pensacola and damaged several buildings at a nearby industrial park, the Pensacola News Journal reported.
The same storm flipped an 18-wheeler on Interstate 10 about the same time.
A possible tornado damaged six homes in Santa Rosa County, ripping the roofs off of two of them, county spokeswoman Sarah Whitfield told the News Journal.
Georgia
A woman was trapped in a car when a tree fell on it early Sunday on the Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway in Atlanta's Grove Park neighborhood, Atlanta Fire Rescue Department said. The woman was taken to a hospital with injuries.
The storm spawned several reported tornadoes in Georgia.
Chattooga County's Emergency Management Agency said multiple homes and businesses in the county in northwest Georgia were inundated with water, WXIA reported.
Louisiana, Mississippi
Claudette flooded streets and brought heavy winds and severe weather to several areas of the Gulf Coast and inland as it moved across land throughout the day Saturday.
The storm, brewing for several days in the Gulf, was designated a tropical storm Saturday morning and downgraded to a tropical depression Saturday evening. Claudette's effects stretched from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle and were expected to move further inland through Sunday.
Highways and bridges were closed throughout the region Saturday morning, including parts of Highway 90 between Biloxi and Pass Christian, Mississippi. Flooding and sand covered much of the roadway, the Sun-Herald newspaper reported.
A journalist for the Sun-Herald shared a video of elevated homes surrounded by water in Hancock, Mississippi.
In Slidell, Louisiana, police deployed high-water rescue vehicles due to widespread flooding in the city.
"We are currently clearing/have cleared approximately 40 to 50 vehicles out of the roadways due to them being flooded with water," the agency said in a social media post at about 6:30 a.m. CDT. "Last night/early this morning, we had to rescue multiple people from their flooded cars, along with a woman, who was on her way to the hospital, possibly going into labor."
There were no reports of major injuries or damage.
"We ask people to please use caution when driving around this morning," the post continued. "There is still a lot of debris and stalled vehicles in the area. Water is still high in some neighborhoods. Drive slow through floodwaters, especially in neighborhoods."
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
