Strong storms ripped through the central and southeastern US late Tuesday and Wednesday, spawning damaging tornadoes, producing massive hail and killing two people in Tennessee and another in North Carolina.
The storm that swept through Northeast Tennessee brought strong winds that brought down power lines and trees. Claiborne County Sheriff Bob Brooks said a 22-year-old man was in a car that was hit by one of the trees. Claiborne County Mayor Joe Brooks also confirmed the death in a social media post.
A tornado emergency, the National Weather Service's highest warning level, was issued Wednesday afternoon for an area south of Nashville, including the cities of Spring Hill, Chapel Hill and Eagleville.
A tornado warning had previously been issued for nearby Columbia, about 45 miles south of Nashville.
Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder confirmed in a statement that at least one person died as a result of the storm, but details on the cause of death were not immediately available.
Molder said there were a “number of confirmed tornado sightings” in the area that resulted in “bodily injuries and property damage.”
The Maury County Office of Emergency Management in a statement urged “everyone to stay out of areas affected” by the storm, adding that all schools in the county would be closed Thursday.
In North Carolina, a state of emergency was declared for Gaston County Wednesday evening after a large storm. First responders were working to clear roads of downed power lines and broken trees and were assisting residents, officials said. The New Hope Fire Department responded to a tree on top of a car. One person in the car died and another was taken to a hospital, authorities said.
More than 152,000 customers were without power in North Carolina and Tennessee Wednesday night, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.
Tornadoes were first reported after dark Tuesday in parts of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, according to the National Weather Service. The storms came to day after a deadly twister swept through a town in Oklahoma.
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The National Weather Service confirmed that tornadoes touched down in western Ohio on Tuesday: five in Warren County and one each in Darke, Mercer and Auglaize counties. The weather service said crews are still surveying areas of Franklin and Butler counties to determine if tornadoes touched down there as well. Radar indicated a tornado touched down in Jefferson County, but crews will have to assess the damage to determine its rating, said Jeff Craven, a meteorologist with the Pittsburgh Weather Service.
On Wednesday, crews were able to survey damage from severe storms that packed hail and heavy rain and knocked out power to thousands of utility customers.
In Michigan, weather service meteorologist Nathan Jeruzal said tornadoes touched down one each in Kalamazoo, Cass and Branch counties, all in the southwestern part of the state. Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency for four counties.
The Portage area of Kalamazoo County was hit hard as a FedEx facility was vandalized and more than a dozen mobile homes were destroyed. About 50 people were temporarily trapped inside the damaged facilities due to downed power lines.
More than a dozen homes were destroyed in a mobile home park in adjacent Pavilion Township and 16 people were injured, Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller said.
Samantha Smith grabbed a box Wednesday afternoon as she left her mother's partially destroyed home in Pavilion Township, about 137 miles west of Detroit. Inside the box were his grandmother's ashes. Being able to recover the most cherished items offered Smith a rare moment of relief amid the storm's devastation.
His parents and brother were injured during the storm, but survived.
“I've thanked God probably a billion times since this happened yesterday,” he said. “My children are healthy and well. We just have to get back what we lost.”
Travis Wycoff ventured out Tuesday night after seeing on radar that a tornado had touched down in the Portage area, and said he helped an elderly couple out of their partially collapsed home and freed a service dog of a house.
“There were a lot of people running around the streets trying to find people and their pets,” Wycoff said. “It was just a lot of chaos.”
In southern Indiana, the National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado touched down early Wednesday, damaging homes in a subdivision north of the town of Sellersburg, located about 12 miles north of Louisville, Kentucky.
The Clark County Emergency Management Agency said the storm damaged 24 structures.
Candice Holmes, a resident of the Lewis & Clark subdivision north of Sellersburg, said she, her husband and son took shelter in the bathroom when they heard the storm approaching and “the wind just died down. “rise suddenly”.
“It was definitely a scary moment … And I'm glad we're alive,” Holmes told WDRB-TV.
Tornadoes were also confirmed in Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh, central Arkansas and northern West Virginia. The West Virginia tornado, which began early Wednesday in eastern Ohio, was at least the 11th tornado this year in the state that sees two tornadoes in an average year.
Baseball-sized hail was reported Wednesday in areas southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. Heavy downpours led to flash flooding and at least one water rescue near Sullivan, a town that was hit by a small tornado just two days earlier. Damaging hail was also reported in the Kansas City area.
Tuesday's storms came a day after parts of the central United States were battered by heavy rain, strong winds, hail and tornadoes. Both the Plains and the Midwest have been hit by tornadoes this spring.
In the US, the whole week looks stormy. The Midwest and South are expected to bear the brunt of the bad weather for the rest of the week, including Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis and Cincinnati, cities where more than 21 million people live. It should be clear over the weekend.
