Mississippi declares emergency as storms in US South kill 11 on Christmas Eve

Southern US states began digging out on Thursday after severe storms killed at least 11 people, and Mississippi declared a state of emergency in areas pounded by tornadoes.

With about 100 million Americans expected to travel over the Christmas holiday, the National Weather Service forecast isolated severe thunderstorms from the mid-Atlantic region to the Gulf Coast and record warmth in New York.

The storm system packed high winds and triggered more than 20 tornadoes in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Michigan on Wednesday, authorities said.

A large tornado tore a 100-mile (160-km) path through northern Mississippi, demolishing or heavily damaging more than 100 homes and other buildings before plowing into western Tennessee, authorities said.

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency in areas affected by the storm, saying 14 tornadoes had touched down in the state. Bryant said seven people were killed and one person was missing.

"Everybody is pulling together here in Mississippi today to help respond to this disaster," Bryant said on CNN.

He said shelters had been set up and the full extent of the damage would not be known for several days. Mississippi authorities said some 40 people were injured and a 7-year-old boy was among those killed.

Three people died in Tennessee and an 18-year-old woman was killed in Arkansas when a tree crashed into her house, authorities said.

Thirteen counties in Tennessee suffered severe damage, with a post office destroyed and a state highway washed out.

Emergency crews in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee were searching for several people reported missing. Scores were injured in the region.

A rare tornado touched down in Canton, Michigan, and about 15,000 homes in the state and neighboring Wisconsin were without electricity. The weather service issued a gale force wind warning for Lake Michigan, where waves could reach 15 feet.

About 500 flights were delayed or canceled at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport as the area was hit by a thunderstorm.

Meanwhile, much of the northeast enjoyed balmy weather on Thursday, including New York, which surpassed its record for the warmest Christmas Eve reaching 71 degrees Fahrenheit (22 C).

Cold and snow were forecast on Christmas Day for the US Northwest, including temperatures in the teens in Montana and snow likely in Washington, Oregon, northern California, and Nevada.

Of the 100 million Americans traveling over the holiday, 91 million will use cars, according to the American Automobile Association.

source: interaksyon.com

Violent tornadoes kill 5 in US Midwest, dozens injured

CHICAGO - At least five people were killed and dozens more hurt as severe storms and violent tornadoes battered the US Midwest Sunday, and officials warned the toll would rise.

Flights were grounded and tens of thousands of homes lost power as intense winds overturned cars, uprooted large trees, and snapped power lines. Large swaths of the city of Washington, Illinois, were flattened.

President Barack Obama was briefed about the storms and will receive regular updates, the White House said.

Illinois Emergency Management Agency chief Jonathon Monken told CNN at leave five people had been killed -- including two in the far southern tip of the state and one in Washington -- as he warned that the number of injuries would likely increase "significantly."

At least two of the victims were killed in the small town of New Minden, Washington County Coroner Mark Styninger told AFP.

Joseph Hoy, 80, was found dead on his farm while his 78-year-old sister Frances was pronounced dead in hospital.

"It just happened so fast," said Styninger, who lives just two miles (around three kilometers) from the Hoy farm.

Local television reported at least 37 people were being treated by a medical center in Illinois, seven of them with "severe" injuries.

'Please pray' says storm-hit town's mayor

Monken said at least 70 homes were completely destroyed in two different areas, and hundreds were damaged less severely. Four Red Cross shelters have been opened in the affected zone.

The dangerous weather caused the National Football League to suspend a game in Chicago, asking fans and players to take cover in the stadium. The game resumed almost two hours later.

In Indiana, local media reported damage to commercial buildings, including a destroyed bank branch.

More than 64,600 homes lost power, according to Duke Energy. In the metropolitan area of the state capital Indianapolis, Indianapolis Power & Light reported nearly 16,000 without power.

"Absolute destruction," WMBD31 news reporter Alexandra Sutter wrote on Twitter in describing the scene.

Sutter later tweeted, after speaking with the mayor of the storm-hit town of Washington: "I asked what we can report to help. He said only 'please pray.'"

The CBS television affiliate for Central Illinois where she works said that its studio, which also hosts the local Fox affiliate, lost signal after a power hit to its transmitter.

A photo posted on the station's Facebook page showed someone holding a tennis ball-sized piece of hail.

"Pay attention to all weather alerts and stay home and inside if possible," Illinois Governor Pat Quinn warned residents, adding that the severe weather was "very serious."

In Washington, Michelle Cumrine came back from a trip to find that her house was completely gone.

"Our house was just beyond the deck," Cumrine said in disbelief as she stared at the rubble.

"A lot of people have a pile of rubble still. I don't have anything. It's gone. I don't know where it went."

The National Weather Service warned of a "potentially very dangerous situation," with tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail forecast over parts of the Ohio and middle Mississippi Valley region as well as the southern Great Lakes region into the night.

Flights at Chicago's international airport were delayed by an average of 2.5 hours and grounded at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport.

source: interaksyon.com

Oklahoma tornado victims astounded at how they survived

MOORE, Oklahoma - Tornado survivors thanked God, sturdy closets and luck in explaining how they lived through the colossal twister that devastated an Oklahoma town and killed 24 people, an astonishingly low toll given the extent of destruction.

At least one family took refuge in a bathtub and some people shut themselves in underground shelters built into their houses when the powerful storm tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on Monday.

While rescue workers and body-sniffing dogs sifted through the ruins on Wednesday, those who escaped told their stories of survival while trying to salvage what was left of their belongings.

"Yesterday I was numb. Today I cried a lot. Now I'm on the victory side of it," said Beth Vrooman, who hid in a shelter in her garage in Moore during the storm.

The tornado's winds exceeded 200 miles per hour, flattened entire blocks and demolished two schools and a hospital on the storm's 17-mile (27-km), 50-minute rampage through central Oklahoma.

Of the 24 people killed, 10 were children, including seven who died at Plaza Towers Elementary School. About 240 others were injured. The youngest victim was four months old. The oldest was 63.

Listed as the highest category of storm - an EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale - the twister damaged or obliterated 12,000 to 13,000 homes and affected an estimated 33,000 people, said Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett.

President Barack Obama was due to survey the damage himself on Sunday, a White House spokesman said.

After rescue workers pulled more than 100 survivors from the debris, authorities said six people remained unaccounted for in Moore, a town of 55,000 people.

"They're not sure if they've walked off or if they are in the rubble," Albert Ashwood, director of Oklahoma's Department of Emergency Management, told a news conference.

Experts explaining the low death toll cited a relatively long advance warning of 16 minutes for the tornado and high awareness of the dangers in a region known as Tornado Alley.

Even so, some survivors were astounded they made it.

Tonya Williams, 38, said she still felt in shock after surviving the tornado, as so many did, by taking shelter in a closet.

She put bicycle helmets on her 8-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son, collected her three dogs and pushed them all into a hall closet.

"We prayed. I could feel pressure, and being sucked. I put my body over them to try to protect them," Williams said.

Neighbors dug them out. The roof and upper story of the house had collapsed into and around the closet. Williams and her children suffered only minor injuries.

A large wooden cross that had been hanging on an upstairs wall was found on top of them, she said.

"If you weren't a religious person before, you are now," Williams said. "No word can describe it but a miracle."

Most of the victims died of blunt force injuries and five of the children died from mechanical asphyxiation, when a person's chest is compressed so that it cannot take in air, the state medical examiner said.

Jessica Parmenter, 26, and her three small dogs were at home and directly in the tornado's path. Neighbors rushed to a nearby storm shelter but she did not make it in time and took refuge in a closet. Afterward, a neighbor found Parmenter inside with her dogs. The rest of her home was gone.

"The only thing standing was the closet," said Parmenter's mother-in-law, Lori Blake. "There is a hole in the closet. It kept trying to suck her out and she kept holding on."

Tornado Alley

Some ascribed the relatively few deaths to "storm safe" shelters, but only 2.5 percent of homes in Oklahoma County were so equipped, officials said.

Moore, which has seen four tornadoes since 1998, had experienced the fury of the strongest category of tornado previously when an EF5 twister devastated the region on May 3, 1999, killing more than 40 people.

The National Weather Service had been issuing alerts for days ahead of the latest storm.

"As much as any place on earth, folks who live in Moore know what severe weather alerts mean," said Bill Bunting, chief of operations for the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

Still, the largely conservative state so far has resisted government imposing requirements that new homes or schools come equipped with storm shelters.

"We're going to have that discussion as a state as well as a community," US Representative Tom Cole, a Republican whose district includes the area hit by the tornado, told MSNBC.

Kraig Boozier, 47, took to his own small shelter in Oklahoma City and watched in shock as a fan in the wall was ripped out.

"I looked up and saw the tornado above me," he said.

In Oklahoma City, Jackie Raper, 73, and her daughter, sought shelter in the bathtub.

"The house fell on top of her," said Caylin Burgett, 16, who says Raper is like a grandmother to her. Raper suffered a broken arm and leg as well as bruised lungs, Burgett said. (Additional reporting by Alice Mannette, Lindsay Morris, Nick Carey, Brendan O'Brien, Greg McCune, Jane Sutton and Susan Heavey)

source: interaksyon.com

12 Tornadoes Hit North Texas

DALLAS (AP) — Tornadoes raked the Dallas area Tuesday, crumbling a wing of a nursing home, peeling roofs from dozens of homes and spiraling truck trailers into the air like footballs. More than a dozen injuries were reported.

Overturned cars left streets unnavigable and flattened trucks clogged highway shoulders. Preliminary estimates were that six to 12 twisters had touched down in North Texas, senior National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Martello said. But firm numbers would only come after survey teams checked damage Wednesday, he said.

In suburban Dallas, Lancaster police officer Paul Beck said 10 people were injured, two of them severely. Three people were injured in Arlington, including two residents of a nursing home who were taken to a hospital with minor injuries after swirling winds clipped the building, city assistant fire chief Jim Self said.

``Of course the windows were flying out, and my sister is paralyzed, so I had to get someone to help me get her in a wheelchair to get her out of the room,'' said Joy Johnston, who was visiting her 79-year-old sister at the Green Oaks Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. ``It was terribly loud.''

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport canceled hundreds of flights and diverted others heading its way. Among the most stunning videos was an industrial section of Dallas, where rows of empty tractor-trailers crumpled like soda cans littered a parking lot.

The confirmed tornadoes touched down near Royce City and Silver Springs, said National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Bishop. April is the peak of the tornado season that runs from March until June. Bishop said Tuesday's storms suggest that ``we're on pace to be above normal.''

Johnston said her sister was taken to the hospital because of her delicate health. Another resident at the nursing home, Louella Curtis, 92, said workers roused her out of bed and put her in the hall. ``The hallways were all jammed,'' Johnston said. ``Everyone was trying to help each other to make a path for others. I'd say everybody was out of their rooms within 20 minutes.''

source: mb.com.ph