A powerful storm unleashed tornadoes and peeled the roofs from homes in America's Deep South and heaped snow on the Midwest, killing three people and leaving thousands without power as it moved up the East Coast.
Emergency officials said yesterday one person was killed by a tornado in Mississippi.
In Missouri, a utility worker repairing power lines was electrocuted, and a woman in Nebraska died when she tried to walk through a snowstorm from her broken-down car to her house less than 2km away away.
In Mississippi, Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said one person died and 10 people were injured after a tornado struck the far eastern part of the state.
Charlotte Conner, 47, and her mother were in a small apartment when the twister hit.
Conner said she grabbed her mother's hand to keep the woman from being sucked outside.
The two women had injured knees, scratches and bruises, and Conner had five stitches in her chin.
"I feel like I've been run over by an elephant and a train, but we're alive," Conner said.
"It was just the hand of God that kept us safe."
Conner's aunt, Cindy Moore, 56, worried that the two women had been killed when she saw the roof of the concrete block building hanging in trees across the street and their belongings scattered.
- AP