4 dead as heavy storms/tornadoes push through US Midwest
Pastor Dale Morgan
4 dead as heavy storms/tornadoes push through US Midwest*
Friends and family members of Jim and Marsha Beggs try to contact them
after inspecting damage of their home north of Carl Juction, Mo., which
was hit by high winds on Friday. Many cities in southwest Missouri were
without power after severe thunderstorms rocked the area.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Powerful thunderstorms and tornadoes battered parts of
the Midwest on Friday, leaving four people dead, collapsing a church and
knocking out power to thousands, authorities said.
Two people were killed near Poplar Bluff, Mo., when wind knocked a tree
onto their sport-utility vehicle. In Dallas County, a man in his 70s had
a fatal heart attack after he and his wife were sucked from their home
by a tornado and thrown into a field 75 to 100 feet away, said county
emergency management director Larry Highfill.
The wife was taken to a Springfield hospital. Her condition wasn't
immediately known.
A mobile home was blown off its foundation in southeast Kansas, killing
a 54-year-old woman inside. Wilson County emergency management
spokeswoman Cassandra Edson said it appeared the mobile home was
"wrapped around a tree."
Wind in the area reached 120 mph, destroying the New Albany United
Methodist Church, the town's post office and at least one home,
authorities said. Major damage also was reported to a high school in
Cherokee, Kan. and to the courthouse in Doniphan, Mo.
Airplanes were flipped over by winds at the El Dorado, Kan., airport,
the Wichita Eagle reported on its website. In Towanda, a stone silo
bearing the city's name was reduced to rubble.
National Weather Service offices in Springfield, Mo., and St. Louis
received multiple reports of tornadoes from one end of Missouri to the
other, mostly south of Interstate 44.
The weather service confirmed that at least two tornadoes touched down
between 8 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. in southwest Missouri's Greene County. The
county's Office of Emergency Management counted three homes and one
business destroyed with 298 homes, 29 businesses and 13 schools damaged.
Also destroyed was a fire station in Ebenezer that opened just a year ago.
Many counties reported wind of 80 mph and higher. Several people were
hurt, mostly when wind damaged their homes or businesses, but a few from
flash floods.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency.
"My primary concern is the safety of Missourians and this executive
order makes state agency resources available to help communities respond
to the storms," Nixon said.
In southern Illinois, the storm system peeled siding and roofs off homes
and other buildings, blowing out car windows and tearing up trailer parks.
A truck driver who had to be extricated from an overturned semitrailer
was in serious condition after a "major trauma," said Rosslynd Rice, a
spokeswoman for Southern Illinois Healthcare. About six other patients
with minor injuries were being treated at Memorial Hospital of
Carbondale, she said.
"It tore the hell out of things," said Calvin Brown at the Cherry Street
Pub in Herrin, a town of about 11,000 residents east of Carbondale. "It
was wicked. I haven't seen that in a long time."
Carbondale Township fire Capt. Mark Black said he wasn't sure if a
tornado touched down in his area but the "winds were just amazing. They
were howling and the siding on the trailers was flying through the air
and there was a pretty hard rain."
Law enforcement agencies reported tornado touchdowns in the Jackson
County community of Raddle and just south of Pinckneyville in Perry
County, National Weather Service meteorologist Amy Seeley said.
Seeley said the strong line of thunderstorms began moving through the
region Friday morning. Wind gusts in the Carbondale area reached 100 mph
around 1:30 p.m., and sustained winds were as high as 90 mph.
Carbondale resident Eric Fidler said he rode out the storm in a basement
room with his wife, 22-month-old daughter and their dog.
When they emerged, dozens of large, old trees had been snapped
throughout his neighborhood — including an old oak blocking his front
door — but there was little damage to homes. Even the cushions on his
patio furniture were undisturbed.
"I was talking to a neighbor and saying, 'This is just incredible.
Everywhere I look, there are enormous trees down, but it missed
everybody's house,"' said Fidler, who walked a mile to the hardware
store for a chain saw.
David Gugerty, 28, a graduate student at Southern Illinois University,
said a tree crushed his car and a branch tore through the roof of his
trailer, coming to rest atop his refrigerator.
"I'm sitting in the trailer park trying to decide which way to run,"
Gugerty said.
In sparsely populated Dallas County, Mo., seven people were hurt as wind
destroyed 35 homes and damaged numerous others, state emergency
management officials said. Highfill said all the damaged homes were in
the same path, a strong hint that a tornado was to blame.
More than 150,000 homes and businesses across southern Missouri were
without power at the peak of the outages Friday, including 60,000
customers in the Joplin area and 70,500 rural co-op members. Hundreds of
homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed.
In St. Francois County, 911 director Alan Wells said several people
suffered moderate injuries from wind damage at their homes. Roofs were
torn off of many homes and businesses. A tractor-trailer overturned on
U.S. 67 near Park Hills.
Wind wasn't the only problem. Many parts of Missouri received 3 inches
of rain or more. Flash flooding forced authorities to rescue several
people from cars and homes in St. Francois County. Downed trees and
flash flooding also closed roads from Springfield through Cape Girardeau.
In Joplin, strong winds toppled a big section of KSNF-TV's tower shortly
after 7 a.m., crushing a vehicle and damaging two homes. It appeared no
one was hurt.
In Kentucky, one person was killed after a strong thunderstorm moved
through the central part of the state, an emergency management official
said. The woman's body was found in a pond, but officials weren't
releasing further details about her death.
Winds destroyed several homes in Madison County, said Michael Bryant,
the county's assistant deputy emergency management director.
The county has declared a state of emergency and Kentucky national guard
troops were en route to help with the aftermath, he said. Officials were
still assessing the damage Friday evening.
Elsewhere in Kentucky, flash flooding was reported in several counties
as several inches of rain fell across the state during the day on ground
that was already saturated.
In Louisville, the weather service reported 1 to 2 inches of rain had
fallen over the metro area.
Churchill Downs suspended the last five races of the day due to heavy
showers and thunderstorms, saying in a news release it was just the
third cancellation of its kind in the last 19 years.