ADEL, Georgia — Powerful storms kicked up apparent tornadoes and pushed the weekend death toll to 16 people killed and dozens injured as a fast-moving storm system punched through the Southeast for a second day on Sunday, authorities said.
In California on Sunday, raging floodwaters swept through mountain communities and residents fled homes below hillsides scarred by wildfires as the third in a series of storms brought a deluge and warnings about mudslides.
An apparent tornado blew through a mobile home park early Sunday in southern Georgia’s rural Cook County — sheering off siding, upending homes, and killing seven people, local authorities said.
An eighth death was reported in Cook County by state officials, although it was unclear whether that victim lived in the park. Four people were killed in adjoining Georgia counties Sunday. Another four people were killed by a tornado in Mississippi on Saturday, bringing the weekend death toll to 16.
Coroner Tim Purvis said the tornado leveled the park before dawn Sunday and that emergency responders searched for survivors for hours after the twister struck. Purvis said the park had about 40 mobile homes, and roughly half were destroyed. The area was cordoned off by police.
Not far from the mobile home park, 19-year-old Jenny Bullard wore a sling on her injured arm as she combed through the rubble of her family’s brick house. All that remained standing Sunday afternoon was the master bedroom and parts of the kitchen.
‘‘It’s a horrible tragedy,’’ Bullard said. ‘‘But all this stuff can be replaced. We can’t replace each other. We’re extremely lucky.’’
Bullard said she awoke before dawn Sunday to the sound of hail pounding the roof. When she went outside her bedroom door, she was knocked down by a collapsing wall in the hallway. She managed to get up and found her father calling for her, trapped under debris.
She pulled him free, and they found her mother in the master bedroom. They escaped by climbing over piles of furniture and debris where the wall to their home office once stood.
President Trump said Sunday he had spoken with Governor Nathan Deal of Georgia and ‘‘expressed our sincere condolences for the lives taken.’’
Several homes appeared to be destroyed along on a road within about 2 miles of the mobile home park, with cinderblocks scattered on the ground, and pine trees uprooted and snapped in half. The tops of broken utility poles lay alongside the road.
The South Georgia Motorsports Park in Cecil was heavy damaged; a grandstand was ripped apart. Barrels, signs, insulation and garbage were strewn over the speedway and parking lot.
Georgia’s governor declared a state of emergency in seven southern Georgia counties, freeing up state resources to assist with recovery efforts.
‘‘Our thoughts and prayers are with Georgians suffering from the storm’s impact,’’ Deal said in a statement.
The National Weather Service said southern Georgia, northern Florida, and the corner of southeastern Alabama all faced severe weather threats Sunday. Forecasters said that long-track tornadoes, somewhat rare and capable of staying on the ground for 20 or more miles, were possible.
Two of Sunday’s deaths occurred when a mobile home was struck by a tornado in Brooks County, which moved the home roughly 100 yards.
‘‘A tornado hit a mobile home, picked it up and put it in the middle of Highway 122,’’ Brooks County Coroner Michael Miller said. ‘‘I don’t know if it rolled or was lifted, but it blocked the entire highway.’’
While the central part of the country has a fairly defined tornado season — the spring — the risk of tornadoes ‘‘never really goes to zero’’ for most of the year in the Southeast, said Patrick Marsh of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
January tornado outbreaks are rare but not unprecedented, particularly in the South. Data from the Storm Prediction Center shows that, over the past decade, the nation has seen an average 38 tornadoes in January, ranging from a high of 84 in 2008 to just four in 2014.
If the storm deaths reported so far this year — four each in Alabama and Mississippi and the 11 in Georgia — are due to twisters, January’s toll would be worse than 1999. That year, 18 people died in Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee.
The California storm system was expected to gain strength and could be the strongest storm in at least seven years, forecasters said.
California has been swamped in a winter that has brought plenty of rain and snow after years of drought.
Residents in rural Santa Cruz County watched helplessly Sunday as the San Lorenzo River spilled over its banks for the second time this month, sending muddy water and debris into yards and homes.
‘‘This is the fastest I've ever seen this river move. It’s already flowing under my house. I have maybe 2 feet of clearance before it’s in my living room,’’ Paradise Park resident Tammy Grove told the Sentinel newspaper.
Rock slides, debris flows, and flooding closed roads and snarled traffic up and down the state as the third storm in four days dumped heavy rain and snow in the mountains.
