ARABI, La. (AP) — A tornado that menaced New Orleans flipped a schoolbus, ripped off rooftops and deposited a house with a family inside onto the middle of Prosperity Street. Two people were killed as the storm front blew across the South.
Other tornadoes spawned by the same storm system caused so much damage in Texas that the governor declared a disaster in 16 counties, and shredded buildings in Alabama, where torrential rainfall was recorded.
Multiple people were injured. The dead included a woman north of Dallas, Texas, and a person in St. Bernard Parish, next to New Orleans. Authorities didn’t immediately describe how they were killed.
The city of New Orleans escaped significant damage, Mayor LaToya Cantrell tweeted late Tuesday, but tornadoes touched down in Arabi, just east of the city, and further east in Lacombe, across Lake Pontchartrain, the National Weather Service said.
Television stations broadcast live images as the storm damaged an area about 2 miles long and a quarter-mile in Saint Bernard Parish.