Tornadoes Kill At Least 3 in Louisiana and Mississippi

At least seven tornadoes hit Louisiana and Mississippi on Tuesday, killing at least three people, the AP reports. National Weather Service meteorologist Ken Graham says that number includes the one that slammed into a trailer park in Convent, Louisiana, and one that killed a person near Purvis, Mississippi. Graham says teams will be sent out in the morning to document the damage and rate the tornadoes. Sheriff Willy Martin says at least two people were killed when the twister hit the park in Convent. He says authorities are using dogs to search piles of rubble left in the wake of the storm to find anyone else still missing under the debris. Martin says at least 30 people were wounded. Of those, seven are in critical condition.

Vann Byrd of Mississippi's Lamar County Emergency Management Agency says the death in Purvis occurred in a mobile home west of the city. Byrd says officials are still sorting through reports of damage to some buildings. The storm system caused early school closures in districts in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. But it wasn't just tornadoes causing problems. Graham says a lightning strike hit the building where the weather service is located, knocking out their radar systems and forcing them to go to backup systems. (More tornado stories.)