Alabama tornado claims 14 lives, death toll expected to rise

At least 14 people, some of them children, died after a tornado swept through Lee County, Alabama on Sunday (March 3), and the death toll was expected to rise as rescuers searched through the rubble of destroyed homes, authorities said. Emergency workers faced a grim night of pulling the dead and injured from the wreckage of homes and businesses. Severe weather unleashed one of many possible tornadoes that threatened the Southern United States on Sunday afternoon. Tornado warnings and watches were in effect for parts of Georgia and Alabama through Sunday evening. Video footage from the small community of Beauregard in Lee County showed homes reduced to piles of wreckage, felled trees, and debris from blasted buildings scattered across roads. Photos posted on social media from a highway near Smiths Station, about 20 miles (32 km) east of Beauregard, showed a large bar called the Buck Wild Saloon with its roof torn off and missing most of a wall after the storm swept through. A state of emergency for Alabama, issued on Feb. 23 to deal with flooding, would be extended, the governor's office said. Lee County Schools announced on Twitter that campuses in the county would be closed on Monday.