‘One traumatic thing after another’: New Orleans homes flattened by giant twisters

For Bonnie Norris, the tornadoes that tore through New Orleans on Tuesday evening seemed to come out of nowhere. She and her boyfriend were watching television when something outside caught their attention.

Norris described the tornado as a black, spinning vortex. She said the noise was deafening, like a freight train. "I just remember saying, 'Here it comes, here it comes.'"

Jumping into action, Norris's boyfriend suggested they take shelter in a closet, but at the last second, Norris said they should lie down in the bathtub. That decision may have saved both of their lives. Moments later, their home was demolished, caving in on top of them.

"The tub is what saved us," Norris said. "It was an all-surround tub and the roof came down in one piece. It protected us, and we were able to get out."

The two or more tornadoes that tore through the New Orleans metro region Tuesday evening killed at least two people and carved a swath of destruction in a region still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Ida last year.

Norris lives on Patricia Street in Arabi, a small town in St Bernard parish, which borders New Orleans to the south-east. The twister that destroyed her home was spawned by the same system of severe thunderstorms that moved across the deep south and caused major damage in Texas, where the state's governor declared a disaster in 16 counties.

It's believed to have formed over a New Orleans suburb before moving across the Mississippi River into the Lower Ninth Ward and then into St Bernard parish, both of which were some of the most heavily affected areas during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that killed more than 1800 people. But Arabi appears to be the hardest hit by Tuesday's tornado.