Two people are dead and multiple injured after a powerful winter storm swept through the Southeast on Thursday, bringing heavy winds, rain and floods that devastated communities across a dozen states.

The storm destroyed mobile homes in Mississippi and Alabama, caused mudslides in Tennessee and Kentucky, and flooded communities throughout Appalachia.

In Harlan County, Ky., two mobile homes floated away and dozens of families were evacuated amid rising water, authorities said.

"It’s a very bad situation that continues to worsen by the hour," Harlan County Judge-Executive Dan Mosley said, adding that about 20 people were sheltering in a church after evacuating their homes.

The rain continued falling over splintered trees and sagging power lines stretching from Louisiana into Virginia. Multiple school districts canceled classes as the weather rolled through.

One person was killed and another injured as high winds destroyed two mobile homes in western Alabama, the Storm Prediction Center reported.

The victim, Anita Rembert, was in one of the homes with her husband, her child and two grandchildren, said Kevin McKinney, emergency management director for Marengo County, Ala. The man was injured but the children were OK, he said.

Powerful winds left roadsides strewn with pieces of plywood and insulation, broken trees and twisted metal.

A driver in South Carolina was killed after a tree fell on an SUV near the town of Fort Mill, authorities said. The York County Coroner's Office did not immediately release the driver's name.

Meanwhile, dangerous waters caused by flooding forced rescuers to suspend their search for a vehicle that disappeared with a person inside it in north Alabama's Buck's Pocket State Park.

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Tree limbs and fences were toppled when a confirmed tornado hit the Birmingham suburb of Helena, officials said, and some roads and parking lots were covered by floodwaters. Downtown streets also flooded near the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. A yellow taxi was abandoned in high water early Thursday on an interstate ramp in Birmingham.

James Everett, senior manager of the TVA's river forecast center in Knoxville said anyone who lives near rivers and lakes in the Tennessee Valley should prepare for rapidly changing water levels.

In Kentucky, Harlan, Bell and Knox counties declared states of emergency. Bell Judge-Executive Albey Brock said the heavy rains washed out roads and led to rockslides and water rescues.

In Georgia, a tree crashed onto an interstate north of Atlanta, crunching a car but causing no serious injuries, authorities said. Huge trees toppled and snapped in the state's northwestern Gordon County, smashing a home and blowing roofs off of buildings.

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Students were told to shelter in place while tornado warnings were in effect in the Atlanta suburbs and at Athens’ University of Georgia. Children in the Lawrenceville area huddled in school hallways as the weather moved through.

Residents at a nursing home in West Virginia were asked to remain inside after a road leading directly into the facility buckled during heavy rains.

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The airport in North Carolina's largest city evacuated a control tower and advised people to shelter in place because of a tornado warning. Charlotte-Douglas International Airport later tweeted that an inspection of its airfield showed no damage. More than 400 flights into and out of the airport were canceled Thursday.

More than 172,000 homes and businesses were without power across the South, according to poweroutage.us, and the rain was forecast to continue into Friday across much of the region.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.