Deadly tornadoes hit Mississippi

YAZOO CITY, Miss. - Tornadoes ripped through the Southeast yesterday, killing at least 10 people in Mississippi and injuring more than a dozen others.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said five people were killed in Choctaw County, four in Yazoo County and one in Holmes County. No names have been released. Three of those dead in Choctaw County are children, ages 3 months, 9 and 14.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said three deaths were reported in Yazoo County and three in Choctaw County in north-central Mississippi.

Republican Gov. Haley Barbour told The Associated Press there was "utter obliteration" in parts of Yazoo County. More than 15 other counties were damaged.

"The effects of these storms have left many Mississippians with destroyed businesses and without homes," Barbour said.

The swath of debris forced rescuers to pick up some of the injured on all-terrain vehicles after a three-quarter-mile wide tornado touched down in at least three counties in the west-central part of the state.

Tornadoes were also reported in Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama, and the severe weather continued to track eastward.

In Yazoo City, about 40 miles north of Jackson, stunned residents stood on a hill overlooking the destruction. Three broken crosses stood near a flattened church, and religious materials were scattered among twisted steel, broken wood and furniture. A nearby funeral home was reduced to rubble.

Jim Pollard, a spokesman for American Medical Response ambulance service, said two patients from Yazoo County were airlifted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. More than a dozen people were treated for cuts, bruises and broken bones in Yazoo City, said Laura Henderson, who works at the hospital there.