Cliff Notes – 26 killed as tornadoes rip through parts of US
- Over 26 fatalities have been reported across the US due to severe weather, with significant casualties resulting from highway accidents and tornadoes in states like Kansas, Texas, Missouri, and Arkansas.
- A massive storm system has prompted widespread alerts, impacting around 108 million residents, with tornado warnings in several states and ongoing concerns of flash flooding and wildfire risks.
- Recovery efforts are anticipated to take months, especially in Arkansas, where severe tornado damage has affected numerous homes, and power outages have left hundreds of thousands without electricity.
At least 26 killed as tornadoes and dust storms rip through parts of US
At least 26 people are reported to have died in powerful storms across the United States. The number of fatalities increased after eight people died in a highway pile-up caused by a dust storm in Sherman County, Kansas on Friday.
At least 26 killed as tornadoes rip through parts of US and at least 50 vehicles were involved.
Car crashes during a dust storm also killed three people in Amarillo, Texas. Authorities in Missouri say 12 people died after tornadoes struck the state, with another three deaths reported in Arkansas.
Around 108 million people remain under widespread wind, flash flooding and wildfire alerts in central and southern US states. Hundreds of thousands of households are also without power.
Tornado warnings are in place in parts of Illinois
Tornado warnings are in place in parts of Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Indiana, and Kentucky as a massive storm system moves across the country.
Many areas across southern states are, or will soon be, dealing with widespread flash flooding, the National Weather Service warned. It added that the flooding could turn deadly. In Butler County, Missouri, on the border with Arkansas, local coroner Jim Akers said the man and his wife were sleeping when the tornado struck.
Rescuers were able to pull the woman from the debris – but could not save the man whose mobile home was ripped apart.
“It was unrecognisable as a home. Just a debris field,” he said, describing the scene. “The floor was upside down. We were walking on walls.” Large vehicles were also pictured overturned across the state.
Recovery could take months
Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders warned the recovery could take months after surveying damage from an EF3 tornado in Cave City, in the north of the state. A storm ranked as EF3, on a scale of one to five, requires wind speeds of between 136-165mph (218-265kph).
Hail the size of baseballs”It’s hard to look at this level of devastation and not be heartbroken,” she said. “It’s a whole other world when you see it up close and personal.” Winds gusting up to 80mph (130kph) were predicted from the Canadian border to Texas, threatening blizzard conditions in colder northern areas and wildfire risk in warmer, drier places to the south.
Hail was also a hazard, some the size of baseballs were reported in Christian County, the US weather service said.
Fatal pile-ups during dust storms.
In the Texas city of Amarillo, three people were killed in car crashes caused by a dust storm on Friday, according to the state’s public safety department. One of the deaths happened after three lorries collided with four other vehicles in Palmer County, Bovina’s fire chief Cesar Marquez said. Another occurred after a pile-up of an estimated 38 cars.
“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” public safety department sergeant Cindy Barkley said, calling the near-zero visibility a nightmare. “We couldn’t tell that they were all together until the dust kind of settled.”Evacuations were ordered in some Oklahoma communities as more than 130 fires were reported across the state. Nearly 300 homes were damaged or destroyed, said governor Kevin Stitt.
Three deaths happened due to storm damage in Independence County, Arkansas on Friday night, with a further 29 people injured across eight different counties, authorities said. More than 260,000 households are without power in midwestern and southern states, according to the monitoring website PowerOutage.us.
The Storm Prediction Center at the National Weather Service issued an update on Sunday, warning of a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms.The warning covers an area from the extreme southeastern part of Mississippi, across much of Alabama, into western Georgia and the western Florida panhandle.