Severe weather set to strike East Coast, damaging winds expected in Northeast

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ABC News(NEW YORK) — Almost 300 damaging storms have been reported in the last 24 hours from Texas to Virginia including at least 40 reported tornadoes in six states: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.At least 12 people have died overnight including seven in Mississippi and five in Georgia.Hundreds of homes have also been damaged or destroyed across the South in the past 24 hours.There are approximately one million customers without power from Georgia to West Virginia.This includes 176,873 people without power in Georgia, 146,936 in Alabama, 147,290 in Arkansas, 86,299 in South Carolina, 78,636 in Mississippi, 73,368 in Kentucky, 63,891 in Texas, 57,523 in North Carolina, and 53,360 in West Virginia.In addition, the same storm system that brought all the tornadoes to the South also brought up to a foot of snow from the Plains into the Great Lakes on Easter Sunday.On Monday morning, five states are under a Tornado Watch from Virginia down to Florida and tornadoes are expected Monday morning.As this storm system moves to the East Coast, more severe weather is expected with tornadoes mostly possible from Richmond, Virginia south to Raleigh, North Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia.Further north, we cannot rule out a few tornadoes near Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and even parts of central New Jersey, but the primary threat to these areas will be potentially damaging winds with some areas possibly seeing gusts near 75 mph which could bring down trees and power lines.Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.