JACKSON, Miss. -- A Mississippi woman who desperately tried to direct rescuers to her sinking vehicle after it skidded into a rain-swollen creek was among five people killed in storms across the South.
Jacqueline Williams, 52, ran off a road into a creek in Florence before dawn Monday and dialed 911 from the car as it went down, said Rankin County Coroner David Ruth.
Ruth said Williams, who lived in Florence, was trying to relay her location to a dispatcher as the car settled into the swirling waters.
"She was trying to tell the dispatcher where she was, and she could actually hear the sirens," Ruth said.
The two lost contact, and Ruth said a swift-water recovery team later found Williams' body in the creek outside the car.
Florence Police Chief Richard Thomas told WJTV that the current where Williams died was fast and strong.
Thomas said authorities got a call from a woman saying her car was being swept off into the water around 4 a.m. Authorities immediately began looking but couldn't find her in time.
"It was really quick," Thomas said.
The woman's body was eventually recovered, but Thomas said authorities were waiting for the waters to recede so they could recover the vehicle.
Florence is a town of about 4,000 people.
"Our kids played baseball together," Thomas said. "Words don't describe. They're really good people."
In South Carolina, officials said a mobile home flipped during the storms Monday, killing a man.
J.C. Matthews Jr., 65, was dead by the time emergency help arrived at his destroyed home in Whitmire, the county coroner's office said Monday.
The administrative assistant to Union County Sheriff David Taylor, Kim Bailey, said the National Weather Service hasn't confirmed that a tornado touched down, although she said county emergency services officials believe that's what caused the mobile home to flip.
In the tiny Mississippi Delta town of Glendora, the mayor's wife died Sunday when strong winds toppled a tree onto the couple's house. Mayor Johnny Thomas was briefly hospitalized with injuries after his wife, Shirley, was killed, said town Clerk Aquarius Simmons.
"She was a nice lady. Very sweet. Everybody loved her," Simmons said of Shirley Thomas.
Two other people died earlier in Louisiana. A tornado flipped a mobile home Sunday in Breaux Bridge, La., killing a mother and her 3-year-old daughter.
Forecasters said tornadoes and strong winds were likely from Mississippi to South Carolina. The greatest tornado risk was centered over southern Alabama, the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma said.
Some schools in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama canceled or delayed the start of classes Monday so students wouldn't travel in heavy rain or on flooded streets.
Forecasters said about 3 inches of rain already had fallen in parts of western Alabama. Alabama Power said more than 27,000 homes and businesses were without electricity.
By Monday morning, the worst of the weather to hit Louisiana had passed through but left pockets of tornado damage and flooding.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards signed a statewide emergency declaration Monday before embarking on a trip to survey storm damage in two central and southern parishes.
Some of the heaviest rains fell in central Louisiana from Sunday into early Monday. C.S. Ross, a National Weather Service hydrologist in Shreveport, said nearly 8 inches of rain was reported in Grant Parish in the north central part of the state.
As the storms rumbled east on Monday, officials in Georgia also reported damage, and a welcome home party for South Carolina's national championship women's basketball team was postponed.
The university had planned a celebration Monday afternoon in Columbia to honor head coach Dawn Staley and her team. Weather forecasts prompted the school to initially push the event to Monday evening before postponing it altogether.
The school said it will announce details of the rescheduled celebration later this week. The city has announced a parade will be held Sunday afternoon.
Georgia Emergency Management Agency spokesman Lisa Rodriguez-Presley said the agency had gotten reports of trees down and structural damage to a fire station in Carrollton, about 50 miles west of Atlanta.
Information for this article was contributed by Rebecca Santana of The Associated Press.
A Section on 04/04/2017