Relentless, life-threatening weather conditions continued into Sunday across multiple states, including the threat of severe flooding in Memphis, Tennessee and Little Rock, Arkansas, and tornado watches in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
Since Wednesday, at least 18 people have died amid the outbreak of severe weather, including a 9-year-old boy in Kentucky who was swept away by floodwaters as he walked to a bus stop, and several people killed in southwestern Tennessee after a strong EF-3 tornado ripped through the city of Selmer.
The Arkansas Division of Emergency Management confirmed the state's first storm-related death -- a 5-year-old child found in a home in southwest Little Rock. The agency did not provide any other details of the child's death but said it was related "to the ongoing severe weather in Arkansas."
In Missouri, a 16-year-old firefighter responding to a reported water rescue, died in a vehicle crash on Friday in Beaufort, about 60 miles west of St. Louis, according to the Beaufort-Leslie Fire Protection District and a Missouri State Highway Patrol crash report.
The firefighter was identified as Chevy Gall.
"Tonight is a fire chief's worst nightmare," Beaufort-Leslie Fire Protection District Chief Terry Feth said in a statement on Friday. "We are heartbroken by the loss of one of our own."
Earlier this week, authorities in Missouri said another local fire chief, 68-year-old Garry Moore, died while helping a stranded driver on Wednesday. Moore was the chief of the Whitewater Fire Protection District.
Overall, the death toll stands at 10 in Tennessee, three in Missouri, two in Kentucky, and one each in Indiana, Arkansas and Mississippi.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves announced on social media Sunday the one storm-related death in his state and said damage has been reported in 14 Mississippi counties.
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