RIEGELWOOD, N.C. (AP) – A tornado flipped cars, shredded trees and ripped mobile homes to pieces in this little riverside community early Thursday, killing at least eight people, authorities said.

The disaster the two-day death toll from a devastating line of thunderstorms that swept across the South to 12.

Kip Godwin, chairman of the Columbus County Commission, said authorities had nearly concluded their search of the area where all the deaths occurred – a cluster of trailers and an adjacent neighborhood of brick homes – and had accounted for everyone. Hospital officials said four children were in critical condition.

The storms that began Wednesday unleashed tornadoes and straight-line winds that overturned mobile homes and tractor-trailers, uprooted trees and knocked down power lines across the South.

In Louisiana, a man died Wednesday when a tornado struck his home. In South Carolina, a utility worker checking power lines Thursday during the storm was electrocuted. In North Carolina, two people died in car crashes as heavy rain pounded the state, dropping as much as five inches in some areas.

Off the coast, a Coast Guard helicopter lowered a pump to a fishing boat that was taking on water in 15-foot seas about 50 miles from Charleston. One crewman was aboard the 34-foot boat, which the Coast Guard escorted back to land.

The tornado that struck Riegelwood – situated on the Cape Fear River about 20 miles west of Wilmington – hit shortly after 6:30 a.m.

“There was no warning. There was no time,” said Cissy Kennedy, a radiologist’s assistant who lives in the area. “It just came out from nowhere.”

As many as 40 mobile homes were damaged before the tornado crossed a highway and leveled three brick homes. Some of the dead were believed to be children.

Household debris, including carpet and a laundry basket, was scattered along a road. The storm dumped a minivan in a ditch, and an open refrigerator that still had food inside was filled with rainwater.

County Commissioner Sammie Jacobs said four to five mobile homes were demolished, and there were “houses on top of cars and cars on top of houses.”

“We’ve stepped across bodies to get to debris and search for other bodies here this morning,” Jacobs said.

The storm knocked out power to 45,000 customers in North Carolina. But the electricity was back on in most places by mid-afternoon.

The storm also caused minor flooding in the Washington area, where rescuers grabbed several people stranded in their vehicles, and slowed commuters as far north as Newark, N.J.