By Jason Samenow, Matthew Cappucci and Reis Thebault
An outbreak of severe weather, (click here) including several destructive tornadoes, swept across the South Thursday, killing at least five people in Alabama and one in Georgia. The swarm of storms came after roughly 50 tornadoes tore through the region last week.
An extremely volatile atmospheric setup prompted the National Weather Service to declare a rare level 5 out of 5 “high risk” for severe thunderstorms, focused in Alabama but touching several surrounding states.
During the mid-afternoon Thursday, a tornadic thunderstorm carved a 100-plus mile path across north central Alabama into northwest Georgia, spawning multiple twisters while passing south of Tuscaloosa and then south and east of Birmingham. The tornadoes left behind pockets of severe damage along with reports of injuries and fatalities.
A tornado killed at least five people in Calhoun County, Ala., located between Birmingham and the Georgia border. Among the dead are a family of three that lived in a wood-frame house in the small town of Ohatchee, along with a man and a woman who lived in mobile homes in Ohatchee and Wellington, respectively, county coroner Pat Brown told The Washington Post....
