At least 40 people in seven states have died amid a severe weather disaster that swept across the central and southern U.S., officials said Sunday. At least 12 deaths were reported in Missouri, the most of any state, officials said. Sunday is the third day in a row that severe storms packing destructive winds, large hail, tornadoes and flooding downpours target over 20 states and 150 million people.
As AccuWeather reports, on Sunday morning, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said at least three people were killed in her state on Saturday. “Yesterday’s severe weather impacted most of Alabama,” Ivey said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we have learned of the loss of at least two of our fellow Alabamians — one life in Plantersville and one in Winterboro.” Ivey said 52 of Alabama’s 67 counties reported damage from the severe weather outbreak and that a damage assessment was continuing.
The storms even targeted at least one NWS office, with forecasters at NWS Birmingham forced to take shelter as a tornado passed close to their building Saturday evening. At least eight deaths were reported in Kansas; four people perished in Texas; three people died in Arkansas; and four people were killed in Oklahoma, officials said.
In Mississippi, a tornado tore through Tylerstown Saturday evening causing extensive damage and killing three people, WDSU reported. Two people were killed in the same home in Jefferson Davis County and another death was reported in Covington County, Gov. Tate Reeves said. The total death toll in that state remains at six, as three others that had been reported missing were later found alive.
Damage consistent with an EF-4 tornado near Diaz in Jackson County was reported by The National Weather Service in Little Rock, Arkansas, which reported estimated winds of up to 190 mph. Multiple tornadoes struck northeastern Arkansas between 9:00 p.m. and midnight, with at least 10 radar-detected tornadoes touching down in counties across the state. Nocturnal tornadoes are particularly dangerous as people can’t see them coming and don’t know to take shelter.
At least 15 people in Missouri and Arkansas were killed and many more were injured after severe storms, including multiple tornadoes, swept through the central United States late Friday night into Saturday, and at least three people were killed Friday afternoon after extreme winds, monster dust storms and wildfires tore across Texas and Oklahoma.
Oklahoma officials reported more than 130 blazes across 44 counties. Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a morning press conference that more than 170,000 acres burned and 293 homes and buildings were damaged. Stitt also reported one death related to wildfire smoke, and credited the low death toll to the success of evacuation alerts. Stitt said his own ranch burned down in the wildfires but vowed to rebuild.
More than 500 reports of severe weather, including strong winds, hail and tornadoes, were tallied across the Plains, Gulf Coast and Midwest since the first storms erupted on Friday.
The deadly storms ripped apart houses and businesses and entire neighborhoods are unrecognizable. Parts of Missouri and Mississippi experienced some of the worst of the extreme weather. To add to the chaos, a magnitude 3.0 earthquake rattled central Mississippi at the same time the first tornado plowed into Taylorsville.
In some cases, the destruction is so bad it’s difficult to tell what building you’re looking at in video footage. “Everything is just total destruction. There’s several homes just completely leveled. Our auto parts store is completely leveled…it looks like a bomb went off; it actually does,” one Cave City, Arkansas, resident said early Saturday morning. “All the houses have the roofs ripped off them, a lot of houses have caved in.”
As of Sunday night, parts of Pennsylvania, Florida, and North Carolina were still at risk.
As damaging and deadly as this event was, it was not the historic outbreak feared in some states, particularly Alabama. Storm survey teams will continue to assess damage, debris and radar data to determine the exact number, paths and strength of tornadoes. It will take several days for the damage surveys to be conducted. Meteorologists are likely to spend years studying what set this storm apart from past landmark outbreaks in order to better forecast them ahead of time.
This severe weather outbreak has been testing NOAA’s ability to handle a large-scale, deadly weather event in the wake of laying off about 800 staff, including more than 100 meteorologists, in late February. These layoffs reduced staffing at some local weather forecast offices to threadbare levels, causing some to reduce their services. More layoffs of up to around 1,000 NOAA employees are possible in coming weeks, though it’s not clear if those would fall at other parts of the agency than NWS.
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