TWO journalists reporting on severe weather on the fringe of Subtropical Storm Alberto in the US have been killed after their car was hit by a tree.
Police said a large tree toppled on the TV news vehicle near Tryon, North Carolina, on Monday.
Station WYFF-TV of Greenville, South Carolina, said one of its news anchors Mike McCormick and photojournalist Aaron Smeltzer were killed.
The pair had just interviewed Tryon Fire Chief Geoffrey Tennant as they reported on fringe storms in North Carolina, hundreds of miles from the centre of Alberto.
Tennant said minutes later he got a call “and it was them”.
He did not directly blame Alberto for the deaths, noting the tree became loose in ground already saturated by a week of rain.
Authorities so far have not attributed any deaths or injuries directly to the storm.
Forecasters warned that heavy downpours from the vast storm system were increasing the potential for life-threatening flash floods across north Florida, much of Alabama and large areas of Georgia – and elsewhere around the Southeast.
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