By Steve Barnes
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Tornadoes andthunderstorms ravaged several states in the American Southovernight, killing at least 26 people, injuring dozens andcausing widespread damage, emergency services and local mediasaid.
The violent storms swept across Arkansas, Tennessee,Kentucky and Mississippi, overturning trucks, trapping people,ripping up houses, smashing cars, and uprooting trees. By earlyWednesday morning, the city of New Orleans and the states ofAlabama and Georgia were also under tornado warning.
Two of the states hit by the tornadoes -- Arkansas andTennessee -- were involved in "Super Tuesday" as a total of 24states across the country held nominating contests ahead ofNovember's presidential election.
Several candidates expressed condolences to the victims asthey addressed supporters and there were media reports that atleast four polling stations in western Tennessee were closedbecause of the storm.
At least 12 people were killed in Tennessee, according tothe Nashville Tennessean newspaper's online edition.
The roof of a warehouse collapsed in Memphis, killing atleast three, while northeast of Nashville, a massive fireerupted at a gas station with flames shooting up 500 feet (152meters) in the air, the paper said on its Web site.
In Arkansas, emergency services reported 11 dead aftertornadoes hit as many as eight counties.
"It's a pretty rough night in the scope of it. I don't knowif I can remember when we've had as many (tornado) warnings andtouchdowns," Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe, said by telephone froman emergency operations centre in North Little Rock.
The governor's spokesman, Matt DeCample, said there was "noclue" as to how many were injured. "We're getting answers backin the multiples, but we're still looking for folks," he said.
In Kentucky, at least three people were killed at a mobilehome park, the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper reported.
WIDESPREAD DAMAGE
Extensive damage in Tennessee included part of a shoppingmall in Memphis and a dormitory at Union University in Jackson,where some students were trapped for a time but not seriouslyinjured, according to the Web site of the Memphis CommercialAppeal. The newspaper quoted a National Weather Servicespokesman as saying the Memphis area had been hit by a "prettysignificant tornado."
CNN reported as many as 86 injuries and an unknown numberof fatalities from the storm system, which swept throughArkansas before moving into Tennessee.
ABC affiliate WAPT in Jackson, Mississippi reported that a50-foot (15-metre) wall had collapsed at the Sears store in theHickory Ridge Mall in southeast Memphis and a building caughtfire along State Line Road at Airways Boulevard.
The Jackson Sun reported that a nursing home had beenseriously damaged but the 114 residents were evacuated with noinjuries reported.
The Nashville Tennessean newspaper, citing the FayetteCounty Sheriff's Department, said one man had been found deadnorth of Somerville, Tennessee.
The paper reported that the National Weather Service hadrecorded a half dozen tornadoes in Tennessee and northernMississippi.
It also reported that 60 tractor-trailers had crashed on aninterstate highway.
(Writing by Mike Conlon and Sandra Maler; additionalreporting by Pat Harris in Nashville and Richard Cotton inTupelo, Mississippi; Ed Stoddard in Dallas, Editing byCatherine Evans)
