Powerful storms packing winds near hurricane force killed at least one woman Friday in Florida as a week of deadly severe weather continued in the South, where uprooted trees crashed onto homes and knocked out electricity to thousands in several states.
The National Weather Service said wind gusts of 71 mph, just shy of hurricane force, were recorded in Tallahassee, where images posted on social media showed mangled metal and other debris from damaged buildings littering parts of Florida's capital city.
The sheriff's office for Leon County, which includes Tallahassee, said in a Facebook post Friday that a woman was killed when a tree fell onto her family's home.
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The storm that struck Tallahassee early Friday also knocked two chimneys from apartment buildings at a complex where fallen trees covered a row of cars. Fencing was left bent at the baseball stadium of Florida State University, where classes were canceled Friday.
The woman killed in Florida was at least the fourth death caused by severe weather in the Southeast this week. Storms were blamed for killing two people in Tennessee on Wednesday, when another storm death was reported in North Carolina.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on the X social media platform Friday that the state Division of Emergency Management was working with local officials to “do everything possible to return life to normalcy for our residents as quickly as possible.”
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A statement from the city of Tallahassee blamed “possible tornadic activity” for the widespread damage in the city of 200,000 people. There were no immediate reports of injuries. The city said more than 66,000 customers were without electricity and 11 substations suffered damage.
“Restoration will possibly take through the weekend," the announcement said.
Strong thunderstorms also were expected in Alabama near the Florida panhandle, where gusty winds could knock down tree limbs, the weather service said.
Nearly 280,000 homes and businesses from Mississippi to North Carolina were blacked out late Friday morning, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us. Most of those outages were in Florida, where lights and air conditioning were out for more than 180,000 customers.
Several tornado warnings and watches were issued by the National Weather Service on Friday morning, but were lifted by midday as the threat shifted to damaging high winds.
