Officials say two weather-related deaths have been reported from the severe weather that hit Alabama.
A 32-year-old man was killed when the car he was riding in hit a downed tree on Saturday night in Etowah County and a 50-year-old woman died in Walker County after she fell while making her way to a storm shelter, authorities said.
“While she was trying to seek shelter in a storm shelter she basically slipped and hit her head,” said Mark Rose, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service in Birmingham. “So her death is being indirectly attributed to the storm.”
Alabama State Trooper Public Information Officer Chad Joiner the crash that killed Gilberto Magana of Steele is still being investigated.
He said Magana was the passenger in a 2001 Ford Expedition that was traveling two miles east of Altoona when the vehicle struck a tree that had fallen into the road. The car’s driver fled the scene and had not been located.
The weather service confirmed a F3 tornado blew through Walker, Jefferson and Blount counties Saturday night and a tornado touched down in downtown Albertville in Marshall County and in Mentone and Geraldine in DeKalb County.
Officials said 33 people were injured in Albertville but none seriously.