A Vast Storm System Kills At Least Three People In Louisiana

KEITHVILLE, La. (AP) — A vast and volatile storm system ripping across the U.S. killed at least three people in Louisiana.

The Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office said the body of 8-year-old Nikolus Little was found late Tuesday night in some woods and the body of his mother, Yoshiko A. Smith, 30, under storm debris early Wednesday.

Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Sgt. Casey Jones said the boy’s father had gone for groceries before the storm. “He just went to go shopping for his family, came home and the house was gone,” said Jones.

Authorities in St. Charles Parish, west of New Orleans, said a woman was found dead there after a suspected tornado on Wednesday struck the community of Killona along the Mississippi River, damaging homes. Eight people were taken to hospitals with injuries, they said.

“She was outside the residence, so we don’t know exactly what happened,” St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne said of the woman killed. ”There was debris everywhere. She could have been struck. We don’t know for sure. But this was a horrific and a very violent tornado.”

Elsewhere, the huge system hurled blizzard-like conditions at the Great Plains.

In the Carolinas, we get rain. The severe weather threat will stay south of us with a Slight Risk (level 2 of 5) in place for the northern Florida Peninsula. Rain will clear out by mid-day Thursday.