Tornadoes touch down in Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The Latest on severe weather in the Deep South (all times local):

12:45 p.m.

Eastern New Orleans resident James Thomas says his whole neighborhood shows storm damage, but his house escaped a tornado with a near miss.

He says, "It's bad. I've never seen it this bad." He says "As far as I can see, treetops are off, power lines down."

Thomas says he saw the twister coming, grabbed his motorcycle helmet and ran into his bathroom.

He says the room went pitch-black, he heard hail on the window, and came outside afterward to see a damage trail or about 20 to 40 feet from his house.

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12:10 p.m.

Officials say at least seven homes have been damaged in Livingston Parish, Louisiana.

Deputy Emergency Management Director Brandi Janes says two of the houses were completely destroyed.

Janes said she knows of two injuries in the parish, both minor. She didn't immediately have any information on whether the homes that were destroyed were occupied when the storm struck.

She says they are working to get trees out of roadways and with the Red Cross to get help to damaged areas.

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12:06 p.m.

Mike Saia, who works at a marina on the Tchefuncte (te-FUNK-ta) River near Lake Pontchartrain, evacuated his office during one of numerous tornado warnings.

Saia watched the storm through a surveillance camera that feeds an app on his iPhone. He said it passed right over the marina but he saw no sign of any funnels or any damage to the marina. He did say there is debris from trees littering the roadways in the area.

Not far from the marina, a possible tornado was reported in the town of Madisonville, according to reports from the National Weather Service.

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12:00 p.m.

The National Weather Service says it has confirmed three tornadoes that have touched down in southern Louisiana.

Danielle Manning, a meteorologist with the weather service, says one touched down in the eastern part of New Orleans, another touched down near the town of Donaldsonville and another in the town of Killian.

She said they have heard reports of injuries but nothing that has been confirmed yet.

Local media showed images of some severely damaged buildings in eastern New Orleans with downed power lines strewn across the road.

The tornadoes are part of a wall of bad weather moving across the Deep South.

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9:06 a.m.

Tornado watches cover large parts of Louisiana and Mississippi as a line of severe storms moves across the region.

In Louisiana, the watches covered the metro areas of New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

In Mississippi, a tornado watch covered the southern half of the state and included the Jackson, Hattiesburg and Biloxi areas.

The National Weather Service reports that storm spotters reported a funnel cloud near Baker, Louisiana, around 9 a.m. There were no immediate reports of any damage from that storm.