ATLANTA — A strong storm system barreling through the South on Friday killed an 8-year-old girl in Florida and threatened to bring tornadoes to large parts of the Carolinas and southern Virginia.
A tree fell onto a house in Woodville, Fla., south of Tallahassee, killing the girl and injuring a 12-year-old boy, according to the Leon County sheriff’s office. The office said in a statement that the girl died at a hospital while the boy suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Their names weren’t immediately released.
The same storm system was blamed for the deaths a day earlier of three people in Mississippi and a woman in Alabama.
The threat on Friday shifted farther east, where tornado warnings covered parts of northeast Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia.
The national Storm Prediction Center said 9.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were at a moderate risk of severe weather.
Torrential downpours, large hail and a few tornadoes were among the hazards, the National Weather Service in Raleigh, N.C., warned.
Radar readings appeared to show a tornado formed in western Virginia’s Franklin County, south of Roanoke, though damage on the ground still must be assessed, said National Weather Service Meteorologist Phil Hysell. In South Carolina, authorities urged motorists to avoid part of Interstate 26 — the main artery from Upstate through Columbia and all the way to Charleston — because downed trees had left the roadway scattered with debris.
In Georgia, the storm system knocked down trees, caused flooding and cut off power to tens of thousands of people.
In Forsyth County northeast of Atlanta, three firefighters suffered minor injuries when their firetruck overturned during heavy rain and wind, Fire Department Division Chief Jason Shivers said.
Authorities on Friday reported a third storm-related death in the state. Freddie Mobley, 63, died while helping cut a tree that had fallen on a house, Lincoln County Coroner Clay McMorris said.
Two other people who were driving are being counted as storm-related deaths in Mississippi. A woman also died in Alabama when a tree fell on her mobile home Thursday.