Three people were dead after a brutal tornado ripped across Brunswick County in North Carolina, where at least another 10 people were injured and several more remained trapped in their homes early Tuesday morning.
The deadly twister struck just after midnight near Grissettown in the Ocean Ridge Plantation community, leaving “a lot of destruction” between the coastal towns of Sunset Beach and Ocean Isle Beach, Sheriff John Ingram told reporters during an early morning press conference.
“It’s something like I have never seen before,” Ingram added. “It’s going to be a long recovery process.”
Ocean Ridge Plantation, described on its website as an “exclusive and luxurious golf and beach community,” bore the brunt of the tornado’s damage. Power lines and trees were downed across the area, and at least 50 homes were affected in the extreme weather — some of them destroyed entirely, he said.
According to the Brunswick Electric Membership Corporation, thousands of homes and businesses were also without power.
The Brunswick County Emergency Management said some people were left trapped inside their homes and that rescue teams have started going door-to-door and combing through debris in search of victims.
The Wilmington Fire Department said that NC Emergency Management had deployed regional response teams to help with the recovery. The Leland Fire Department posted on Facebook around 1 a.m. that it was also assisting in search and rescue operations.
“Please stay home and stay away from the area,” the department wrote.
The National Weather Service in Wilmington issued a tornado warning late Monday night for Brunswick County, which has a population of about 140,000 people. The twister was spotted and confirmed about 45 miles west of Wilmington in Honey Island a short time later, WWAY reported.
The storm is part of a bigger weather system spreading frigid temperatures across the United States, including in Texas, where millions were left without power amid record-breaking cold weather this week.
With News Wire Services
