Life-threatening tornadoes ripped through five states on Sunday, killing one and injuring more than 20. Meteorologists predict that more than 60 million Americans remain at risk as the twisters continue to make their way through the US on Monday.
A severe storm has generated baseball-sized hail, high winds and
at least 28 tornadoes in the Midwest, including Oklahoma, Kansas
and Iowa. Residents remain in hiding as meteorologists forecast
that the severe weather conditions will continue to generate
destructive twisters.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin declared 16 counties as disaster
areas. Power companies reported that more than 57,000 outages left
people in the dark. In Shawnee, Oklahoma, the body of a 79-year-old
man was found lying in an open area of a mobile home community.
“You could be killed if not underground or in a tornado
shelter,” read a National Weather Service alert posted
Sunday. “Complete destruction of neighborhoods,
businesses and vehicles will occur. Flying debris will be deadly to
people and animals.”
In some regions, homes were destroyed, cars and trucks were
flipped from highways, downed power lines were sprawled across
neighborhoods, and trees were uprooted. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol
shut down Interstate 40 after semi-tractor trailer trucks and
several other vehicles were flipped by wind gusts, Newsok.com
reported.
“It’s tearing up everything. Just ripping everything up in
its sight,” a helicopter pilot told CNN affiliate KFOR,
referencing a tornado near Wellston, Okla. “…Everything was just
gone. Like you took the house, you put it in a gigantic blender,
you turned it on pulse for a couple minutes and then you just
dumped it out.”
The state was littered with debris from damaged houses,
trailers, and vehicles. About 300 homes were in ruins and at least
23 people were injured, according to Fallin and Red Cross spokesman
Ken Garcia.
Ethan Mignard, a staffer at a local newspaper, told CNN’s
iReport that the damage looked like something he had only ever seen
on TV. In some areas, patches of dirt remained where mobile homes
once stood, and children’s toys were littered across the ground and
hanging from trees. Mignard even came across a plot of land with
nothing remaining but the front steps to a house that is now
gone.
“It looks so out of place… To think that you would have taken
these stairs to enter a home, but instead, you look around from up
there and you see total destruction everywhere,” he said.
Counties across Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri were all placed under tornado
watches late Sunday, and are expected to experience
more damage.
“After over 300 reports of severe weather on
Sunday, another round of dangerous severe weather is
expected Monday with the greatest threat once again in
the southern Plains targeting Oklahoma and parts of Kansas,
Missouri, and Arkansas,” the National Weather Service reported.
“However, severe weather is possible much further north towards
Chicago and Madison as well.”
This article originally appeared on : RT