NEW ORLEANS -- Tornadoes touched down in southern Louisiana on Tuesday, wiping houses from their foundations and toppling power lines.
At least three tornadoes touched down -- one in the eastern part of New Orleans, another near the town of Donaldsonville and another in the town of Killian, said Danielle Manning, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Dozens of injuries but no fatalities were reported.
Media in the region showed images of severely damaged buildings in eastern New Orleans with power lines strewn across the road. At least 10,000 homes were left without electricity as the storms moved across the Deep South.
The storms flipped over cars, tore roofs off homes, ripped through a gas station canopy, ripped power poles off their foundations and flipped a food truck upside-down. One tornado left a couch resting improbably on a pile of debris in the middle of a road and trapped a truck driver as power lines wrapped around the cab of his vehicle.
Gov. John Bel Edwards took an aerial tour and made a disaster declaration before meeting with officials in New Orleans. The worst damage was in the same Ninth Ward that was so heavily flooded during Hurricane Katrina.
Edwards, a Democrat, said he was heartbroken to see some of the same people suffering again, and he promised that the state will provide the affected citizens with the resources they need as quickly as possible.
He said seven parishes were hit by tornadoes in an afternoon of tumultuous weather across southeastern Louisiana.
Edwards said he called in the Louisiana National Guard to police and secure the area and urged people to stay away.
"This is not a time to sight-see," he said.
The wall of severe weather also delivered heavy rain and hail to Mississippi and Alabama. The national Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said 2.7 million people were at risk across the region.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said President Donald Trump was monitoring the severe weather and would be reaching out to local and state officials throughout the day.
In New Orleans, hatchet-wielding firefighters walked back and forth along the debris-strewn Chef Menteur Highway, looking for storm survivors.
"I'm homeless now," said Malcolm Ballard, 65, outside the severely damaged Royal Palms Motel.
Inside, his room was in a shambles. The furniture and carpet were soaked by rain that poured in after the storm blew open the door and broke the windows.
Kevin Ballard, 56, arrived to check on his older brother at the damaged motel, but his own injuries turned out to be worse than his brother's. He was at an auto repair shop when the tornado hit, collapsing the shop around him. He had bruises and cuts on the back of his head and neck.
"I was standing in front of the building at first, and I seen something black, twisting," Kevin Ballard said. "Tires and everything fell on the back of my neck and head."
Yoshekia Brown lost everything to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now she's lost everything again: Three-quarters of her home in New Orleans East is now collapsed.
Brown said she was at work when she got a weather alert on her phone. She looked at a weather map and realized that the storm had hit her neighborhood. She drove home to check on her property. On the way, her brother called and said, "Sister, your house is gone."
She didn't believe him.
"I lived in between two blighted properties. One of those would have been gone before my house," she said. "It wasn't real until I walked up. I can see into my living room. I can see into my front bedroom. It's just gone. Like the movie Twister."
Her 2-year-old son and three dogs survived, and her home was insured. She said she's not sure what to do next, but "something good has to come from this."
At least seven homes were damaged in Livingston Parish, northwest of New Orleans, where other minor injuries were reported, said Brandi Janes, the deputy emergency preparedness director.
"Two of them are completely gone ... all the way to the ground," she said of the homes, adding that crews were removing trees from roadways and working with the American Red Cross to get help to damaged areas.
Information for this article was contributed by Jeff Martin, Janet McConnaughey and Chevel Johnson of The Associated Press.
A Section on 02/08/2017