NEW CANEY, Texas (AP) 鈥� Cleanup was underway Monday after a strong storm system spawned hail, rain, high winds and tornadoes killing at least four people.
As of Monday afternoon, over 30 tornadoes had been confirmed as crews worked through about 50 reports of tornado damage spanning from Texas to South Carolina, said Mark Wiley, an emergency response specialist with the National Weather Service鈥檚 Southern Region Headquarters.
The storms came over a busy holiday travel weekend, causing some treacherous road conditions along with delays or cancellations at some of the busiest U.S. airports.
The storms first hit Saturday , where the National Weather Service by Monday had confirmed six tornadoes. Two of the twisters were rated EF3, with peak winds of about 140 mph, including one that hit Montgomery County in the Porter and New Caney areas.
鈥淪ome of the damage was pretty substantial, some cases leveling homes, some producing quite a bit of roof damage,鈥� said Brian Kyle, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Houston.
Around 50 homes in Montgomery County sustained major damage and 30 were destroyed, county official Jason Smith said. A couple hundred more homes sustained minor or cosmetic damage, he said.
Smith said crews, which have been working since the weekend, were continuing to pick up debris Monday.
Officials in Mississippi said two people were killed in storms there, including an 18-year-old who died after a tree fell on her home Saturday night in Natchez in Adams County. In Texas, a 48-year-old woman died in the Liverpool area south of Houston, said Madison Polston of the Brazoria County Sheriff鈥檚 Office. She said the woman was found about 100 feet (30 meters) from her home.
Dozens of homes and buildings were significantly damaged in Brazoria County.
In North Carolina, a 70-year-old man was killed Sunday in Statesville, just north of Charlotte, when a tree landed on the pickup truck he was driving. Highway Patrol Trooper DJ Maffucci said 鈥渋t was just a freak accident鈥� and he believed Matthew Teeple, of Cleveland, North Carolina, was killed instantly.
Maffucci said that the storms were responsible for a number of downed trees and 鈥渜uite a few wrecks."
In the Alabama city of Athens, northwest of Huntsville, storm damaged the downtown area, said city spokeswoman Holly Hollman. Large HVAC units were hurled from the tops of building and the roof was ripped off a bookstore. A full-sized, stripped-down military helicopter was toppled from a pole where it was on display, she added.
鈥淚 stepped out on my porch and I could hear it roar,鈥� she said of the storm.
Although somewhat uncommon for the season, weather officials say even in December can see severe weather under the right circumstances, as warm temperatures from the Gulf of Mexico combine with a cold front.
鈥淵ou can still have the right ingredients that lead to these severe events even in the dead of winter in the Deep South,鈥� said Peter Mullinax, a meteorologist with the National Weather Services鈥� Weather Prediction Center.
Still, it's rare for a system to start in Texas and make its way all the way to the Atlantic Coast this time of year, Wiley said.
Meanwhile, in western Pennsylvania, high winds overnight Sunday caused power outages early Monday, most of them in Pittsburgh and other parts of Allegheny County. Wind speeds of more than 60 miles per hour (97 kph) were reported in Pennsylvania as high winds also blew across Ohio and northern West Virginia.
AccuWeather meteorologist Alex DaSilva in State College, Pennsylvania, said a strengthening low-pressure system ushered in the winds that downed trees and utility poles Sunday evening and into the night. Some 60,000 Pennsylvania utility customers were without power Monday morning.
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Stengle contributed from Dallas. Associated Press reporters Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg and Julie Walker in New York also contributed to this report.
Jamie Stengle And Lekan Oyekanmi, The Associated Press
