MEMPHIS, Tenn. | A tour bus overturned on a slick highway ramp south of Memphis on Wednesday, leaving two people dead and several others injured.
DeSoto County sheriff’s deputy Alex Coker said the bus carrying about 50 people overturned just after midday in that northern Mississippi county near Memphis, Tennessee.
The county coroner, Josh Pounders, said two people were confirmed dead at the scene where Interstate 269 meets with Interstate 22 on the outskirts of that west Tennessee city. The injured were taken to hospitals, some in critical condition, Pounders said.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation reported icing on roads and bridges in 10 north Mississippi counties from the storm, which prompted school closings in west Tennessee and postponed by a day the planned launch of an unmanned cargo rocket in Virginia as the storm took aim at the South.
After days of heavy rain and storms along a cold front, flurries left a thin layer of snow atop vehicles in western Mississippi overnight, and a Mississippi River bridge turned white in Greenville, Mississippi. Light snow or freezing rain was possible as far south as northwest Alabama, officials said, but no accumulation was expected there
The National Weather Service issued a freeze warning for Louisiana through western Alabama as far south as the Gulf Coast from Wednesday night into Thursday. Forecasters say temperatures could drop into the upper 20s.
