At least 10 die in twister in Miss.

YAZOO CITY, Miss. - Tornadoes ripped through the Southeast on Saturday, killing 10 people in Mississippi and injuring more than a dozen others.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said three deaths were reported in Yazoo County and three in Choctaw County in north-central Mississippi.

Gov. Haley Barbour said there was "utter obliteration" in parts of Yazoo County, where he is from.

More than 15 other counties were also damaged.

"The effects of these storms have left many Mississippians with destroyed businesses and without homes," Barbour said.

The swath of debris forced rescuers to pick up some of the injured with all-terrain vehicles after a three-quarter-mile-wide tornado touched down in at least three counties in the west-central part of the state.

Tornadoes were also reported in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama, and the severe weather was headed east.

In Yazoo City, about 40 miles north of Jackson, stunned residents stood on a hill overlooking the destruction. A National Guard helicopter sat nearby, waiting to take Barbour on an aerial tour.

"Sad, man," 22-year-old Rafael Scott said, shaking his head.

"It's really hard to believe it," he said. "I heard they found a couple of bodies."

Three broken crosses stood near a flattened church, and religious materials were scattered among twisted steel, broken wood, and furniture. A funeral home was reduced to rubble. In a patch of woods, pieces of tin were twisted high up in the trees.

Josh Nicholson, 26, was driving home through the storm with his wife, 3-year-old daughter, and year-old son when a power line fell across the road in front their sport-utility vehicle.

"There was nowhere we could go," he said.

Nicholson and his wife took the children out of their car seats and the family huddled in the back of the SUV.

Suddenly, Nicholson said, the vehicle spun around and a tree clipped part of the truck where the 3-year-old had been sitting.

Nobody was hurt.

"It was scary," Nicholson said.

Downed power lines and trees blocked roads, and at least four people were taken by ATV to a makeshift triage center in a parking lot, Yazoo City Mayor McArthur Straughter said.

Yazoo County had about 28,000 residents in the census count a decade ago. The area is known for picturesque hills above the Mississippi Delta.