BIRMINGHAM, Alabama—Damaging storms have left more than 200,000 people without power across the southern United States, and forecasters say more are on the way.
The Storm Prediction Center says wind damage including fallen trees that pulled down power lines and struck buildings happened along a line from Texas to Alabama. A few isolated tornadoes were reported, damaging roofs in the northeast Texas city of Greenville.
More than 70,000 homes and businesses are without power in Arkansas, and more than 30,000 outages each are reported in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama, where crews are out working to remove toppled trees and clear blocked roads.
Forecasters say storms are moving eastward, and more severe weather is possible on Thursday in Alabama and Georgia all the way up the Eastern Seaboard to Pennsylvania.
Flooding already is causing travel problems, flooding commuter train stations and forcing service to be suspended between Philadelphia and New Jersey. The Delaware River was overflowing its banks in places, and people were being rescued from high water.
Rescuers Help People From Flooded Cars
Flash flooding was prompting rescues from homes and cars Thursday morning in the Philadelphia area, including southern New Jersey, where high water also closed parts of Interstate 295 for hours.Heavy rains Wednesday into Thursday morning—up to 5 inches in some places—caused creeks and streams to flood, trapping some cars in knee-deep water on roads and seeping into homes near Westville, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.
A swollen creek flooded part of I-295 near Bellmawr for hours early Thursday, trapping some motorists that had tried to drive through it.
By 6 a.m. Thursday, the trapped cars on I-295 had been towed and the floodwater was receding, but it was still too deep for cars to cross, leaving a large backup of vehicles on either side, CNN affiliate WPVI reported.
The highway reopened by 7 a.m., the station reported.
