At least three people have died and more than a dozen were left injured across Louisiana over the past 24 hours as severe weather moves across the South carving a path of destruction.
A tornado touched down in New Orleans around 4 p.m. CT Wednesday, the National Weather Service confirmed. A tornado debris signature was evident on radar and numerous power flashes were seen on tower cameras as the storm moved through the eastern portion of the city. Damage has been reported, but the extent is unclear at this time.
This is one of 3 tornado reports across the New Orleans metro in the last two hours. The weather service has not issued a report with details on the path of the tornado yet, but the hardest hit areas were from Gretna to Arabi in Louisiana.
Wednesday’s severe weather is “worse than Hurricane Ida,” Gretna Mayor Belinda Constant told CNN affiliate WDSU. The hurricane hit the area last year.
A 56-year-old woman “died after a tornado destroyed her home” in Killona, about 30 miles west of New Orleans, according to a tweet from the Louisiana Department of Health. The identity of the woman was not immediately released, officials in St. Charles Parish said Wednesday.
Eight other people in the parish have non-life-threatening injuries, Sheriff Greg Champagne said during a news conference Wednesday.
Champagne said the tornado was violent.
“There’s a piece of debris on the levee behind you that came from our firing range, 1.7 miles away,” he said, adding this was the second time in two weeks a tornado touched down in St. Charles Parish. “This one created quite a bit of devastation.”
More than 300 miles north, a boy and his mother were found dead after a tornado destroyed their home Tuesday in the northwestern Louisiana community of Keithville,