A tornado flipped cars, shredded trees and ripped mobile homes to pieces in this little riverside community early Thursday, killing at least eight people, authorities said. The disaster brought the two-day death toll from a devastating line of thunderstorms that swept across the South to 12, CNN reported. Kip Godwin, chairman of the Columbus County Commission in North Carolina, said authorities had concluded their search of the area where the eight people died — a cluster of mobile homes and an adjacent neighborhood of brick homes — and had accounted for everyone. Twelve people were hospitalized, including four children in critical condition, hospital officials said. The storms, which began Wednesday, unleashed tornadoes and straight-line winds that overturned mobile homes and tractor-trailers, uprooted trees and knocked down power lines across the South.
