USA Today, by Dinah Voyles Pulver and Thao Nguyen: At least 37 people are dead after dozens of tornadoes, high winds, and dust storms pushed across the United States over the weekend, decimating homes and other structures in several states.
Deaths were reported in Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, and Missouri, where the storms killed a dozen, including three on Friday night when an EF-3 tornado with peak winds of 140 mph ripped through Bakersfield, the National Weather Service said Saturday. A Kansas highway pileup involving over 70 vehicles claimed at least eight lives, according to the state highway patrol.
The severe weather threat will linger through Sunday from Florida northward into the upper Ohio River Valley, the Storm Prediction Center warned. More than 60 million in the U.S. are at risk on Sunday.
A tornado watch in portions of north-central Florida was extended to 5 p.m., and a tornado watch is in effect for parts of northeastern West Virginia, northwestern Virginia, and central Pennsylvania until 7 p.m., with an enhanced risk of severe weather in western New York.
Nationwide, more than 337,000 power outages were reported on Sunday afternoon, including nearly 41,000 outages in Missouri, according to USA TODAY’s outage tracker.
The Storm Prediction Center has logged 75 preliminary tornado reports in seven states since Friday. The weather service is working to confirm the total number of tornadoes.
Weather service offices in scattered locations across the central and eastern U.S. had field crews conducting tornado damage surveys on Sunday.
President Donald Trump released a statement Sunday, stating his office was monitoring the tornadoes and storms that impacted the region and deploying the National Guard to Arkansas.
“My administration is ready to assist state and local officials, as they help their communities to try and recover from the damage,” Trump added. “Please join Melania and me in praying for everyone impacted by these terrible storms!”
– The Columbia, South Carolina office sent a survey team to the north side of Lake Murray and planned to send additional teams on Monday.
– The St. Louis office sent two teams into the field Sunday. One team on Saturday concluded a tornado path from Elmont, Missouri to Union, a result of an EF-1.
– In Tennessee, a team confirmed an EF-1 with 95 mph in Christiana.
– In New Orleans, two teams were working on damage surveys.
Early Saturday evening, the staff at the weather service office in Birmingham was forced to seek shelter in their “safe room,” when a tornado-warned storm approached their office, according to a post on X.
Prophetic Link:
“While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast.” Great Controversy, 589
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