2 dead after storms rake South, take aim at East

ADAIRSVILLE, Ga. (AP) -- Kandi Cash trudged in rain through the splintered debris of her grandparents' home, hoping to salvage photos and other keepsakes after violent storms and tornadoes scoured the Southeast, leaving two people dead before the system advanced on the Northeast.

The demolished home was one of many in the Georgia city of Adairsville splintered by a massive storm front as it punched across the Southeast on Wednesday and then headed across the densely populated Eastern seaboard on Thursday.

The vast storm front stretching on a slanting north-south arc for hundreds of miles shattered homes and businesses around the Midwest and South with tornadoes and high winds earlier in the week. By Thursday, it had spread power outages from the Carolinas to Connecticut, triggered flash floods and forced water rescues in areas outside Washington, D.C.

In the Northeast, utilities reported power outages affecting 74,000 users in Connecticut, nearly 25,000 others in Rhode Island and some 24,000 in upstate New York. Authorities in Rhode Island said gusting winds blew the roof off a building in Central Falls. A wind gust of 63 mph was recorded in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York as temperatures plunged with the cold air mass creeping up behind the front. Forecasters said snowfall was possible from the Great Lakes to the Northeast — some of it lake-effect snow.

Near the nation's capital, emergency responders in Virginia's Loudoun County said they conducted water rescues early Thursday after some flash floods. One Virginia motorist was plucked from a van's rooftop after veering into a water-filled ravine, WTOP radio reported. Water rescues also were reported in the Washington suburb of Montgomery County, Md.

Some flooding also was reported in North Carolina, where 13,000 utility customers were reported without power Thursday after thunderstorms rolled toward the coast. West Virginia authorities reported about 9,000 without power and some secondary roads blocked by flood water Thursday.

Some of the most fierce damage occurred in Adairsville, a town some 60 miles northwest of Atlanta. WSB-TV in Atlanta aired footage of an enormous funnel cloud bearing down on Adairsville. Winds flattened homes and wiped out parts of a big manufacturing plant. Insulation dangled from trees and power poles. A bank lost a chunk of its roof.

On the same Adairsville lot where Cash's grandparents had their house there also was a mobile home where her aunt lived and another small house her cousin was fixing up to move into after a planned May wedding. All three homes were demolished: Christmas ornaments, children's toys clothing, household items and just about everything else that makes up a home were strewn about.

"I'm just picking up pictures," the 28-year-old Cash said. "I've found the most important ones, like when my cousin was born and her late daddy, the ones that matter most."

Cash, who lives in nearby Cartersville, rode out the violent weather in a neighbor's basement. Once the worst had passed, she called her family in Adairsville and was relieved to hear they'd all made it to a cinderblock storm shelter under her grandparents' home.

"I just told them that the Lord was watching after them," she said. "The houses can be rebuilt. The most important thing was that they were safe."

Anthony Raines, 51, was killed when a tree crashed down on his mobile home, crushing him on his bed, Bartow County Coroner Joel Guyton said. Nine other people were hospitalized for minor injuries, authorities said.

The other death reported from the storms occurred in Tennessee, where an uprooted tree fell Tuesday in a storage shed where a man had taken shelter.

Near Adairsville, the storms easily flipped trucks on Interstate 75 onto their roofs, forcing the route to close for a time. Big rig trucks also were overturned by the winds.

"The sky was swirling," said Theresa Chitwood, who owns the Adairsville Travel Plaza.

A shelter was set up at a recreation center as temperatures plummeted to the 30s and 40s overnight and people had no heat or power. Georgia Power said some 9,600 customers were still without power Thursday morning, down from about 14,000 a day earlier.

Around the Southeast, meanwhile, authorities were investigating several reports of twisters.

In Tennessee, officials confirmed that a tornado with peak winds of 115 mph touched down in Mount Juliet. No serious injuries were reported even though the path of damage was about 150 yards wide. At least six other tornadoes were reported statewide. At a shopping center in Mount Juliet, large sheets of metal littered the parking lot and light poles were knocked down. One wall of a Dollar General store collapsed, and the roof was torn off.

Deaths from the latest storm ended the nation's longest break between tornado fatalities since detailed records began being kept in 1950, according to the Storm Prediction Center and National Climatic Data Center. The last one was June 24 in Florida. That was 220 days ago as of Tuesday.

The last day with multiple fatalities was June 4, when three people were killed in Missouri.

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Associated Press writers Kristin M. Hall in Mount Juliet, Tenn., and Phillip Lucas in Atlanta contributed to this report.