A line of storms that hit the southeastern United States on Thursday included a "big and extremely hazardous tornado" that tore across central Alabama.
Although no fatalities have been confirmed to date, the massive weather system that went through Selma, a historic city and the epicenter of the 1960s civil rights struggle, wrecked homes, uprooted trees, and imprisoned at least one citizen.
According to former state senator Hank Sanders, "a tornado has undoubtedly impacted Selma." In actuality, albeit not directly, it struck our house. Windows in the living room and bedroom were blown out by it. The roof in the kitchen is leaking rain.
The incident was one of 33 tornado reports received by the National Weather Service on Thursday, which also included claims of sightings close to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the largest airport in the world for passenger volume, and a confirmed touchdown in Kentucky.
States including North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia continue to be under warnings.In a statement, the Birmingham, Alabama-based National Weather Service said it had received "several heartbreaking reports of damage" and urged people to stay away from devastated regions so first responders could address any emergency.
Bobby Green, a resident of Selma, was stuck in his automobile during the tornado as debris fell on its roof. He claimed to have attempted to flee to a neighboring store, but the wind was so strong that it forced the car door shut. He revealed this to the local news station WVTM. Everything happened quickly, he claimed.
Green said, "I believed it was over for me." "I had to jump out of the passenger side window since all the debris was on top of me."As the city examined the damage, Selma Mayor James Perkins said a curfew would be in place on Thursday.
No fatalities have occurred, according to Perkins. "There are numerous downed power lines here. The streets are really dangerous.
A website that keeps track of outages, PowerOutage.us, estimates that 50,000 individuals were left without power throughout the state.Selma, a city of around 18,000 people, is located in the Black Belt, a portion of the South that is noted for its African American history. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists started their peaceful marches from there in the 1960s, going 87 km (54 miles) to the state capital of Montgomery.
The Brown Chapel AME Church, which has been around for 114 years, is one of many Selma landmarks connected to the city's civil rights history that are vulnerable and in need of repair. In 1965, protesters utilized the chapel as a base of operations while they organized a march, which resulted in an incident known as "Bloody Sunday."On that day, police attacked the protesters using nightsticks, tear gas, and other weapons. Among the victims of the attack was the late John Lewis, a future US senator whose skull was fractured.
Because of the widespread coverage of the occurrence, the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination at the polls, was passed later that year.At the time of the tornado, the historically Black church was undergoing a $1.3 million refurbishment funded by the US National Park Service.
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