Spartanburg, South Carolina — A powerful and deadly storm system is leaving a path of destruction from the Florida Panhandle to Virginia. There are at least four deaths from the storm, including a Tennessee teacher who was killed when a tree fell on a bus.

There were reports of at least nine tornadoes in the Carolinas on Thursday. As strong storms tore across the Southeast, damaging winds overturned 18-wheelers, toppled billboards and took down power lines. A hole ripped through apartment roofs.

Some 125,000 homes and businesses were without power early Friday in Florida, North and South Carolina and Georgia.

"It's bad. Oh God it's bad over there. I mean there's trees pulled up from the root and just thrown. They're on top of buildings," one woman said.

In North Carolina, flights were halted at Charlotte Douglas International Airport because of a tornado warning. Air traffic controllers were forced to evacuate the tower there. At schools in the danger zone, students sheltered in hallways.

Latest pics of today's storm damage. Check out the full gallery here: https://t.co/JyEX05YdPt pic.twitter.com/C3uYcdm7TM — WSPA 7News (@WSPA7) February 6, 2020

The storms first slammed Mississippi on Wednesday and a tornado there cut an 8-mile path. Another twister in Alabama left homes in pieces.

In Georgia, fierce winds slammed a large tree onto one of Atlanta's busiest interstates. Beyond tornadoes, rising flood waters damaged homes in Tennessee, swamped roads in Kentucky and flooded the Greenville Zoo in South Carolina.