A tornado struck a tiny riverside community early Thursday in North Carolina, killing at least six people as thunderstorms continued a path of destruction across the South. Another person died earlier in Louisiana, and a car crash death near Charlotte, N.C. was also blamed on the heavy rain.

"We've stepped across bodies to get (to) debris and search for other bodies here this morning," said Columbus County Commissioner Sammie Jacobs as rescue teams searched the hard-hit Riegelwood community.

"It's pretty well devastated. I've heard about being in a war zone, but this is something to behold," Jacobs told CBS affiliate WRAL-TV in Raleigh during a telephone interview.

The National Weather Service issued a second tornado warning for Columbus County later Thursday morning.

Jacobs said Sheriff Chris Batten told him there were at least six fatalities "and quite a few people with various injuries here and there who have been taken to various hospitals."

Dozens of homes were destroyed in Riegelwood, on the Cape Fear River about 20 miles west of the coastal city of Wilmington, according to Gov. Mike Easley's office.

Easley activated the State Emergency Response Team and sent in emergency crews. Jennifer Long, the county's tourism director who was helping emergency management officials Thursday, said she had received reports that three more people had died — which would bring the total in the area to nine.

Near Charlotte, another person died in a multi-vehicle accident on Interstate 77 while heavy rain fell around 7:30 a.m. Thursday. No other details were immediately available.

Also, a tornado watch was issued for eight counties in the eastern
part of the South Carolina.

Several states have been battered by the storms which began Wednesday, unleashing tornadoes and straight-line winds that overturned mobile homes and tractor-trailers, uprooted trees and knocked down power lines.

A tornado cut a path about two miles wide and three or four miles long in Greensburg, La., north of New Orleans, toppling trees and damaging buildings and power lines, said Maj. Michael Martin of the St. Helena Parish Sheriff's Office. A 43-year-old man was killed when the trailer he was in was destroyed, he said.
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"That home just exploded," said Gordon Burgess, president of neighboring Tangipahoa Parish.

In Montgomery, Ala., high winds destroyed a skating rink Wednesday soon after 31 preschoolers and four adults fled to safety. The day care side of the building was the only part that was not flattened, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.

One child suffered a broken bone and another a cut to the head, but everyone else emerged unharmed from the crumpled wreck of the Fun Zone Skate Center, which doubled as a day-care facility.

Jon Slaughter, who owns two nearby businesses, arrived at the skating center with two employees about five minutes after the building was ripped apart.

"What I saw was just utter destruction," said Slaughter. "The children were scared, they were cold and dirty. They were crying and upset, but really they were calmer than I thought they would be."

The manager of the day-care center operating inside the building had made everyone get into the section of the building that survived the high winds.

"She may have saved many of these children's lives," the Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright said.

In Mississippi's Lamar County, emergency operations center director James Smith said a possible tornado struck a subdivision outside Sumrall around 2:50 a.m., damaging or destroying 11 homes.

Smith said six people were taken to hospitals from the Sumrall area, and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said two other people were injured in Greene County.

In North Carolina, fallen trees blocked roads in Lincoln County, and another possible tornado struck about midnight in eastern Gaston County, where a steeple was destroyed and part of the roof ripped off a church. Duke Energy reported nearly 3,000 customers without power in Gaston County, about 1,200 outages in Iredell County, and nearly 900 outages in Lincoln County.

CBS News