Sleeping 2-year-old girl dies when tree rips RV in half during Louisiana storm

A 2-year-old girl is dead after severe storms ripped through northeast Louisiana late Friday night and early Saturday morning.

According to a news release from the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office, a downed pine tree tore a family’s RV in half at about 12:30 a.m. while they slept, falling directly onto the room where a 2-year-old girl and her 15-month-old sibling were sleeping.

The four adults and the 15-month-old were not injured, but the 2-year-old girl died as a result of her injuries. The incident occurred at the Hillcrest Mobile Home & RV Park along U.S. 80 in Haughton, La., which is about 15 miles east of Shreveport.

“It was actually really bad, I was worried to see if my house was going to flip over,” Skyler Delahoussie, who also lives at Hillcrest RV Park, told KSHV. “It left as quickly as it came. I stepped out of my house to check the damage and I hear screams down the street. The tree was cutting into the mobile home and all I could hear was a woman screaming. I just can’t believe that actually happened.”

The National Weather Service in Louisiana confirmed tornados in Bossier Parish and in Harrison County, Texas, about 55 miles to the east, around the time the tree fell on the family’s RV, according to KEEL. No funnel clouds were confirmed to be part of the storm in which the toddler was killed.

“It was a very large tree,” Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Lt. Bill Davis told KSHV. “You just pray for this family. This is the theme of the night, unfortunately with these high winds and possible tornadic activity, with some of these trees falling into homes.”

The Shreveport-Haughton area was under a severe thunderstorm warning, with winds reaching at least 60 mph, until 1 a.m. local time, according to the National Weather Service.

According to KSLA, families in subdivisions near the RV park where the little girl died were without power for much of the night, and downed trees forced several from their homes.

Tornadoes were also reported about 150 miles to the north, in Umpire, Arkansas.

This story was originally published April 14, 2018 at 7:46 AM with the headline "Sleeping 2-year-old girl dies when tree rips RV in half during Louisiana storm."