10-year-old boy swept into drain after TN storms
COLUMBIA, Tenn. — A 10-year-old boy was seriously injured in Christiana, southeast of Nashville, when he got caught in a storm drain and swept under streets while playing with other children as adults cleared debris, his father, Rutherford County Schools Superintendent Jimmy Sullivan, posted on social media.
The boy, Asher, emerged in a drainage ditch and survived after being given CPR, “but the damage is substantial,” Sullivan posted on Facebook, asking for prayers. A vigil was planned for Thursday afternoon at the school district office.
“Asher needs a miracle,” Sullivan wrote.
Dozens of people gathered at the school district’s offices for a prayer vigil Thursday. They bowed their heads and closed their eyes in prayer, and they sang “Amazing Grace” together.
Powerful storms kill 2 in TN as tornadoes tear through central and southeastern US
Torrential rains led to a flash flood emergency and water rescues northeast of Nashville, and the weather service issued a tornado emergency, its highest alert level, for nearby areas.
More than 170,000 homes and businesses still lacked power Thursday afternoon in several Southern states after storms the night before, according to PowerOutage.us.
One in Tennessee damaged homes, injured people, toppled power lines and trees, and killed a 22-year-old man in a car in Claiborne County, north of Knoxville, officials said. A second person was killed south of Nashville in Columbia, the seat of Maury County, where officials said a tornado damaged or destroyed more than 100 homes.
Gov. Bill Lee says the woman who died in Maury County was in a mobile home at the time the storm hit, which was thrown several feet into a wooded area.
Bob Booth had just gotten home to Columbia from Georgia and was sitting down to watch television when he heard a “crazy racket.”
“I get up and look out, and it was all hell breaking loose outside,” Booth said. “Then the top half of one of my trees goes down across the road.”
Retired pastor Walter Shell said he and his wife grabbed their two dogs and headed for the basement when his phone alerted him to a tornado.
“It missed where me and my wife were standing by about 4 inches. It went around,” he said. “It pays to pray, I can tell you.”
Schools were closed Thursday in Rutherford and several other Tennessee counties. In Georgia, some districts north of Atlanta canceled in-person classes or delayed start times because of storm damage overnight that included fallen trees on houses and vehicles around Clarkesville. No injuries were reported there.
A strong tornado damaged at least 20 homes in northern Alabama’s DeKalb County and caused injuries but no deaths, officials said.
Michigan’s Kalamazoo area was hard hit as a FedEx facility was ripped apart, with downed power lines trapping about 50 people.
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