Limestone County dodged a bullet Monday night as a line of severe storms moved through the Tennessee Valley.

The storms prompted tornado warnings and caused tree damage and mostly minor structural damage, but no injuries were reported here. The storms caused two deaths and several injuries in Lawrence County.

Lawrence County Coroner Scott Norwood said the bodies of Justin Chase Godsey, 35, and Keisha LeAnn Cross Godsey, 34, were found more than 200 yards from their home. The couple’s elementary-school-age son was hospitalized.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey expressed sympathy for the victims.

“While most of us slept through the storm, a family is waking up today devastated,” she said in a statement.

Daphne Ellison with the Limestone County Emergency Management Agency said the bulk of the damage was reported in the southwestern part of the county. She believes at least one storm was a tornado because it was reported by a storm spotter.

“He ducked into his shelter when he saw a pole go down,” Ellison said. “We think it stayed above the tree line and didn’t get on the ground.”

She believes one of the strong storms came in around the Brigadoon community on the Tennessee River. Another circulation may have occurred near Nuclear Plant and Cowford roads.

The home with the most damage was on Neely Hill Loop. Ellison said the home sustained major damage to the roof. There were also multiple trees down in the area, she said. The rear of a home on Batts Road was also damaged.

Scattered damage to trees and structures was also reported on Moyers, Ripley, Snake and Hatfield Lake roads.

Ellison said a couple off Honeysuckle Lane in the Clements community were briefly trapped in their storm shelter.

“A tree fell and the tree limbs kept them from getting out,” she said. “We sent the fire department and sheriff’s department, and they removed those.”

Damage was also reported on the eastern side of the county. New Hope Church on Mooresville Road sustained damage to a sign and playground equipment. There was also structural and tree damage on Cambridge Lane in east Athens.

Downed trees were also reported on Ennis and Sandy roads, two of which reportedly struck vehicles.

“We had debris scattered across the county, and some of it, we can’t figure out where it came from,” Ellison said. “There was people who had a lot of insulation and drywall in their yard and they didn’t have any damage around them.”

About 750 Athens Utilities customers were without power as of shortly after 10 p.m. Monday. By 1 p.m. Tuesday, all but 12 customers were without power.

Ellison said the National Weather Service was surveying storm damage in Colbert, Lawrence and Lauderdale counties Tuesday. She didn’t know when they would get to Limestone’s damage.

Storm victim warning

The city of Athens advised those with storm damage to protect themselves when hiring a contractor. A press release advised residents to ask to see a contractor’s license from the Home Builders Licensure Board.

Homeowners in the Athens city limits can also call City Hall at 256-262-1397 to make sure a contractor has a business license. These steps will help homeowners avoid potential scammers.

Twisters in Mississippi, Louisiana

The storm system that moved across the southeast caused significant damage in Louisiana and Mississippi before moving into Alabama. In Kentucky, one person died in severe flooding in Greenup County.

National Weather Service teams confirmed at least 17 tornado paths in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and the number could rise since teams were still surveying damage.

Col. Bryan Olier, chief of staff at the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, told a news conference that at least 25 counties were affected, 150 homes were reported damaged or destroyed and a about dozen were injured. The numbers are likely to grow.

“We had a storm front that went … from the southwest corner of the state to almost central — some 60 to 80 miles,” Gov. Phil Bryant said.

The Storm Prediction Center logged more than three dozen reports of storm damage from east Texas to Georgia.

“The cat flew,” said Tonia Tyler of Pineville, Louisiana. “It picked the cat up, and the cat flew — my cat — it flew across the yard. And I knew right there, I said ‘Oh God, we’re not going to make it.'”

Betty Patin, 59, died when an apparent tornado struck her home in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, said Chief Deputy Calvin Turner. He said crews spent hours trying to cut through fallen trees and utility poles to reach some hard-hit areas.

Some cities opened warming shelters as a cold front collided with warmer air over northern Gulf Coast states and sent temperatures plunging. In central Alabama, road workers dressed in coats and gloves to clear fallen trees off a highway as the temperature hovered around 40 degrees.

After a day with highs in the mid-40s, overnight lows Tuesday were predicted to dip below freezing, putting pressure on utility crews to restore power to more than 15,000 homes and businesses left in the dark in the region.

In Alexandria, Louisiana, about 200 miles northwest of New Orleans, children in a church school were moved to the church before the tornado ripped off the school’s roof, city police Cpl. Wade Bourgeois said.

Surveying damage with her family, Alexandria resident Summer Evans said there was a lot of devastation.

“It’s bad. There’s animals out, houses tore down,”she said. “The barns are gone. You can’t even find some of the properties. Houses that used to be here, you can’t even find them anymore.”

Evans said her house is undamaged, “but every other house around it is not.”

Meteorologist Donald Jones of the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles said it appeared the twister that hit part of Alexandria also struck near the town of DeRidder on an “absolutely ridiculous” path estimated at 63 miles long.

“I don’t know what our records for the longest total in this area is, but that’s got to be pretty damn close to it,” he said. Survey teams were out Tuesday, checking whether the twister went all the way on the ground or skipped across that distance.

Three people were injured, at least one of them seriously, by an apparent tornado that hit Amite County, Mississippi, Monday afternoon, county emergency director Grant McCurley said.

Some houses were destroyed and others severely damaged, he said. The damage was spread across the county on the southeast Louisiana state line, McCurley said.

Four counties eastward, seven women were taken to a hospital from a heavily damaged group home in Sumrall, Mississippi. Injuries were minor, Sheriff Danny Rigel told WJTV.

In Guntown, Mississippi, near Tupelo and about 260 miles north-northeast of Amite County, an apparent tornado destroyed a church and damaged dozens of homes.

Pastor Carl Estes searched through the debris of Lighthouse Baptist Church for books, photos or any other salvageable items, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported. The storm flattened the building, which Estes said was empty at the time.

Church member Shane Keith told the newspaper he rushed there after the storm and found pews tossed around the hillside.

“I wanted to cry, I really did” Keith said. “I mean, I just got baptized last year and this means a lot to me, this place right here.”

December tornadoes aren’t unusual. Monday was the 19th anniversary of a Southeastern tornado outbreak that produced a twister that killed 11 people in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Storms on Dec. 1, 2018, spawned more than two dozen tornadoes in the Midwest.

— Associated Press writer Janet McConnaughey contributed to this report from New Orleans. Jay Reeves reported from Birmingham.