2 dead, 44 hurt in bus crash on icy highway near Memphis

BYHALIA, Mississippi -- A tour bus overturned on an icy highway southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, on Wednesday afternoon, leaving two people dead and injuring all 44 others aboard as a storm blasted parts of the South with sleet and light snow, authorities said.

Sgt. Joey Miller with the Mississippi Highway Patrol Troop E said in a statement the bus traveling from Huntsville, Alabama, to Tunica County, Mississippi, crashed at 12:35 p.m. on Interstate 269 in the northern part of the state. His statement called the crash "weather-related" but didn't elaborate, though he said the 44 hurt were taken to several hospitals with an array of injuries.

The bus was operated by Teague VIP Express, located in Anniston, Alabama. The company posted a message on its Facebook page: "Our hearts and prayers go out to victims of this tragedy. Please keep everyone involved and families in your prayers."

The red tour bus with white and gray stripes was being towed later Wednesday from the crash site. The bus windows appeared mostly missing or shattered and a smell of gasoline hung in the air. Large scratches and other damage were visible on the driver's side as workers cleared the highway of debris.

The company has only three buses and three drivers, according to licensing information from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and it hasn't had any crashes in the last two years.

A hospital spokeswoman, Ayoka Pond, said 19 passengers were transported from the crash site near Byhalia to Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto in Southaven, Mississippi, and three of them were in serious condition there. She said seven others were taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Collierville in that Tennessee suburb of Memphis.

An additional 18 passengers were taken to Methodist Hospital Olive Branch in that Mississippi city, said spokeswoman Mary Alice Taylor. The hospital couldn't immediately provide conditions of those patients.

The identities of the dead and injured were not immediately released and it was not immediately clear the specific end destination of the bus in the Tunica area, a casino town in Mississippi.

It was the second charter bus excursion to a Mississippi casino town to end in fatalities in the last two years. A bus carrying Texas senior citizens to a Gulf Coast casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, got stuck on train tracks and was slammed by a freight train in March 2017. The crash resulted in four deaths and 38 injuries. The National Transportation Safety Board found the probable cause of the crash was the failure of a railroad and the city to work together to improve the safety of a sharply humped railroad crossing, even though it was well known vehicles occasionally got stuck there.

NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said the federal agency hasn't determined yet whether it will investigate Wednesday's crash.

On Wednesday, the Mississippi Department of Transportation reported icing on roads and bridges in 10 northern counties from the storm. A wintry mix of snow and sleet prompted some school, church and museum closings in west Tennessee during the day.

After days of heavy rain and storms along a cold front, flurries left a thin layer of snow atop vehicles in western Mississippi overnight, and a Mississippi River bridge turned white in Greenville, Mississippi. Light snow or freezing rain was possible with no accumulations into northwest Alabama, forecasters said.

The National Weather Service, meanwhile, issued a freeze warning for Louisiana through western Alabama as far south as the Gulf Coast into early Thursday, saying temperatures could drop into the upper 20s (- 6 Celsius range) in some areas. A flash flood watch remained in effect for north Georgia and the Carolinas, which forecaster say could get another 3 inches (8 centimeters) of rain.

In Virginia, NASA said, the planned launch early Thursday of an unmanned cargo rocket to the International Space Station had to be rescheduled because of bad weather. NASA said the launch would now take place early Friday. The unmanned Cygnus cargo craft will lift off from Wallops Island along the Eastern Shore carrying groceries, hardware and research to the station.

Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Jackson, Mississippi, and Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama, contributed to this report.