One person was killed and 10 others were injured, one critically, as tornadoes and severe weather struck the Midwest and mid-South Wednesday, destroying buildings, toppling semis and train cars, and tearing down trees, officials said.
One person was killed in Missouri between Delta and Advance, two communities around 11 miles apart in the southeastern part of the state, Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Clark Parrott said.
“Stay away and stay home,” he said, because electric crews need access to the area.
There were also four people injured in Arkansas, four in Kentucky and two in Indiana, officials said. The person critically injured was hurt in a suspected tornado in Ballard County, Kentucky, when they were in a vehicle and taking shelter in a church carport, the county emergency management director said.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this devastating event,” Ballard County Director of Emergency Management Travis Holder said in a statement.
Earlier Wednesday, a confirmed EF1 tornado struck Vernon County, Missouri, where eight train cars were knocked over and there was extensive tree damage, the National Weather Service said.
In the area of Lake City, Arkansas, a community of around 2,600, videos posted to social media showed what appeared to be a large funnel cloud.
There was severe property damage, Lake City Fire Chief Hunter Timms said, but there had been no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.
More than 23 million people were under tornado watches Wednesday night from Texas to Ohio, as well as western Kentucky and Tennessee, and forecasters said the severe weather could last for days.
A “tornado outbreak” was expected, with severe storms possible for the Lower Ohio Valley and the mid-South into the overnight hours, the weather service said.
Multiple, long-track EF3 tornadoes are possible, along with a potentially historic flash-flood event, forecasters said.
In Kentucky, a tornado touched down Wednesday night around Jeffersontown, a suburb of Louisville, passing the Interstate 64 and Interstate 265 interchange, according to the weather service.
Four people were injured in Kentucky when a church was hit by debris from a suspected tornado, according to Ballard County Emergency Management. One person was in critical condition, while the others have non-life-threatening injuries.
Another tornado touched down in the northeastern Oklahoma city of Owasso on Wednesday, according to the weather service. There were no immediate reports of injuries, but the twister heavily damaged the roofs of homes and knocked down power lines, trees, fences and sheds.
Power was knocked out to nearly 90,000 customers in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide. As storms moved through Indiana on Wednesday night, more than 182,000 customers lost power.
Strong and long-lasting tornadoes are possible in highest-risk area
About 2.5 million people were in a rarely called “high-risk” zone, covering parts of west Tennessee including Memphis; northeast Arkansas; the southeast corner of Missouri; and parts of western Kentucky and southern Illinois.
The Storm Prediction Center said “multiple long-track EF3+ tornadoes” were likely. Tornadoes of that magnitude are among the strongest in intensity.
At a slightly lower risk for severe weather was an area that included Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Louisville, Kentucky. Dallas, Detroit, Milwaukee and Nashville, Tennessee, were also at risk.
