Heavy rain causing flooding across South

Heavy rain across the South on Wednesday caused flooding, school and road closures and a landslide that destroyed a home in North Carolina.

Thousands of people lost power across the Carolinas as a cold front swept the region with wind and rain, and a landslide destroyed a home in the mountains of western North Carolina.

One home in Haywood County was destroyed, but its occupants escaped with only minor injuries, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported. Emergency crews evacuated eight other homes in the Maggie Valley area.

"I'm just glad no one was killed," said neighbor Carolyn Phillips.

Progress Energy reported more than 52,000 customers lost power as the storm swept through North Carolina and South Carolina. That number was down to 1,670 by 3 p.m., but utility spokesman Drew Elliot said more outages could occur as the front continued through the region.

Around lunchtime, Duke Energy had reduced the number of its customers in the Carolinas without power to about 5,700. But as winds began to gust in the afternoon, the number climbed to 65,000 by 5 p.m. Many of the outages were in the Charlotte, N.C., area, as well as in the Greenville-Spartanburg area of South Carolina.

People in about 25 homes in eastern Tennessee were encouraged to evacuate in the face of rising waters. The rain also closed roads and caused two small rock slides.

In Mississippi, dozens of roads were closed, some homes evacuated Wednesday and at least two homes flooded following two days of heavy rain earlier in the week, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said.

"At this time, 34 roads in Lowndes County are closed, at least two homes are flooded and as many as 25 families are affected by the conditions," MEMA said in a statement.

A shelter was opening at a church in the county to serve displaced residents.

The weather was blamed for an oil truck overturning in southeastern Kentucky. Leslie County Director of Emergency Management James Couch said the oil tanker truck spilled "a couple of hundred gallons" in the Coon Creek area of the county just after 8 a.m. Wednesday. The spill was quickly contained and workers spent much of Wednesday cleaning it up, Couch said.

Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia were also experiencing flooding. In addition to rain, a wind advisory issued for most of Georgia called for gusts ranging from 20 mph to 30 mph.

In West Virginia, the state's major electric utilities, Allegheny Energy and Appalachian Power, reported there were thousands without power. Roads and bridges were closed in West Virginia because of high water and downed power lines, the state Division of Highways said.

Heavy rain flooded more than 30 roads in far southwest Virginia. Twenty secondary roads in Scott County were closed, as well as 12 in Lee County, Virginia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Michelle Earl said.

Near Williamsburg, Va., the storm caused some minor damage to the Le Scoot flume ride at Busch Gardens Europe theme park. Park spokesman Kevin Crossett said a small to medium-size tree did very minor damage to the ride's fiberglass trough.

As skies cleared in Alabama, parts of the state still struggled with scattered flooding from a lengthy deluge that led to rescue operations earlier in the week when cars were engulfed in water.

Meanwhile, forecasts of falling temperatures brought the possibility that rain could soon give way to snow in some places.

Winter storm warnings were issued for counties in West Virginia. A snow advisory was posted for several counties in far eastern Kentucky. The National Weather Service also predicted snow across much of the northern and central Tennessee valley, the northern Cumberland Plateau and the Tennessee mountains.