Dozens of tornadoes strike central US
WASHINGTON—An exceptional number of tornadoes ravaged parts of Oklahoma and nearby Great Plains states, leaving at least five dead, authorities and local media said on Sunday.
Storm warnings for high winds, heavy rain and hail were also issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) on Sunday for more than 47 million people stretching from East Texas north through Illinois and Wisconsin.
After 78 tornadoes were reported on Friday, mostly in Nebraska and Iowa, a separate weather system on Saturday brought 35 tornado reports from northern Texas and Oklahoma to Missouri, the NWS said.The storms dumped up to 18 centimeters of rain in some places within hours, and meteorologists warned of a continuing danger of extreme weather, including flash flooding, hail and more tornadoes.
Sulphur, in South Central Oklahoma, was particularly hard hit late Saturday, with videos and images posted on social media showing scores of buildings ripped apart.
A postal truck sat precariously atop wreckage of a building and trees, one video showed, with cinderblocks and wood beams strewn everywhere. Rescue crews went house to house and vehicle to vehicle in search of victims or survivors.
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, speaking on Sunday from the hard-hit small town, said four people had been confirmed dead across the state.
State of emergency
He has declared a 30-day state of emergency to expedite aid to 12 of the hardest-hit counties, and said he was in contact with federal authorities for assistance.
In a call with Stitt, President Joe Biden offered the full support of the federal government to help with the recovery efforts, the White House said in a statement.
Biden has declared a major disaster over the severe winter storms that flooded the State of Washington and Kansas. The president ordered federal assistance to supplement recovery efforts in the areas affected by the winter storms.
The damage in Sulphur, where one woman died when a tornado rolled through at nighttime, was the worst he’s seen in his six years in office, the Oklahoma governor told a press conference. He began his first term as governor in 2019.
“It seems like every business in downtown has been destroyed now,” he said, adding “thank goodness…there wasn’t a lot of people here at 10:30 at night.”At least two people died in the Oklahoma town of Holdenville, the state’s Department of Emergency Management (OEM) said, with local media reporting a 4-month-old baby was among the victims.
Dead on highway
OEM said a fourth person died on a highway in Marietta, where videos broadcast by local media showed several battered cars along the side of the road, with two semi-trucks overturned and a nearby warehouse ripped open.
The NWS said a preliminary investigation had confirmed tornadoes in Sulphur and Marietta were at least EF-3 on the five-level Enhanced Fujita Scale, meaning gusts above 218 kilometers per hour.
A man in Iowa who was injured in a tornado on Friday later died in hospital, his family told local outlet KETV NewsWatch 7.
More than 25,000 homes in Texas and more than 19,000 in Oklahoma were without power as of Sunday afternoon, the poweroutage.us website reported.The NWS reported 38 possible twisters hit the area and that the worst of the storms rolled through Central Oklahoma on Saturday into early Sunday morning, spreading into northwest Texas, western Missouri and Kansas.
The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management said area hospitals reported 100 injuries. Twisters destroyed or damaged dozens of structures, including the hospital in the town of Marietta, although no injuries were reported there.
The region is known for the frequency and power of the tornadoes that rumble through every spring. But having separate major outbreaks in succeeding days is exceedingly rare, meteorologists said. —reports from AFP, REUTERS
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