At least 32 killed by storms in US South and Midwest

Tornadoes strike again a week after wreaking havoc in Mississippi

Ester Johnson-El, 62, embraces her great-granddaughter She-Keelie, six, beside the wreckage of her home after a tornado hit the Arkansas town of Wynne. Reuters

A storm that tore through the US South and Midwest has killed at least 32 people, with more treacherous weather expected for Monday and Tuesday.

Tennessee, one of the states hit hardest by the storms, raised its death toll to 15. Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Indiana and Illinois reported another 17 deaths. Dozens were injured.

Tennessee's emergency management agency said more severe weather was expected for Tuesday.

Tornadoes in at least eight states destroyed homes and businesses, felled trees and laid waste to neighbourhoods across a broad segment of the country.

Homes flattened by a tornado in Little Rock, Arkansas, after storms tore through the US South and Midwest. Reuters

At least 26 people were killed in the storms that struck between Friday and Saturday. Reuters

The trail of destruction left by a tornado in Sullivan, Indiana. AP

A saw blade is embedded in a tree after the tornado in Sullivan. Reuters

Storms and tornadoes also wrought severe damage across the states of Illinois, Iowa and Oklahoma. AP

The Apollo Theatre in Belvidere, Illinois, was damaged in a storm. AP

Mayor Clint Lamb and Indiana governor Eric Holcomb survey the damage in Sullivan. AP

One-week-old Mylie survived the storm in Sullivan. Reuters

A prayer service in Sullivan after the storm. Reuters

A tornado damaged hundreds of homes and buildings across a large part of central Arkansas. AFP

A rainbow shines after the tornado in Arkansas. AFP

Damaged homes and buildings in Little Rock, Arkansas. AFP

Volunteers help police and firefighters to clear trees in Sherwood, Arkansas. AP

A tree that had crashed into an apartment complex in Little Rock. AP

Residents assess the damage. AFP

A team from Summit Energy says a prayer before investigating a burst gas line in Cammack Village. AP

Firefighters carry a woman from her home. AP

A destroyed shop. AP

Rubble near the Apollo Theatre in Belvidere. AP

Other deaths from the storms, which hit on Friday night and continued into Saturday, were reported in Alabama and Mississippi, along with one near Little Rock, Arkansas, where city officials said more than 2,600 buildings were in the path of one tornado.

Residents of Wynne, a community of about 8,000 people 80km west of Memphis, Tennessee, woke on Saturday to find the high school's roof shredded and its windows blown out.

Huge trees lay on the ground, with their stumps exposed, while debris from fallen walls, broken windows and roofs littered the shells of homes and businesses.

Clothing, insulation, toys, splintered furniture and a pick-up truck with its windows shattered were strewn on front lawns.

Ashley Macmillan said she, her husband and their children huddled with their dogs in a small bathroom as a tornado passed, “praying and saying goodbye to each other, because we thought we were dead”.

A falling tree damaged their home but they were unhurt.

We could feel the house shaking, we could hear loud noises, dishes rattling. And then it just got calm

Ashley Macmillan,
resident of Wynne

“We could feel the house shaking, we could hear loud noises, dishes rattling. And then it just got calm,” Ms Macmillan said.

Recovery was already under way, with workers using chainsaws and bulldozers to clear the area and utility crews restoring power.

Nine people were killed in Tennessee's McNairy County, east of Memphis, said Patrick Sheehan, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency director.

David Leckner, the mayor of Adamsville, said: “The majority of the damage has been done to homes and residential areas."

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee drove to the county to assess the destruction and comfort residents.

He said the storm capped the worst week of his time in office, coming days after a school shooting in Nashville that killed six people, including a family friend.

“It’s terrible what has happened in this community, this county, this state,” Mr Lee said. “But it looks like your community has done what Tennesseean communities do, and that is rally and respond.”

Jeffrey Day said he called his daughter after seeing on the news that their community of Adamsville was being hit.

Huddled in a cupboard with her two-year-old son as the storm passed over, she answered the phone screaming.

“She kept asking me, ‘What do I do, Daddy?’" Mr Day said, tearing up. "I didn’t know what to say.”

After the storm passed, his daughter crawled out of her destroyed home and over barbed wire then drove to relatives near by.

In Memphis, police spokesman Christopher Williams said two children and an adult were killed when a tree fell on a house.

Tennessee officials warned that the same conditions were expected on Tuesday.

In Belvidere, Illinois, part of the roof of the Apollo Theatre collapsed as about 260 people were attending a heavy metal concert. A man, 50, was pulled from the rubble.

“I sat with him and I held his hand and I was [telling him], ‘It’s going to be OK.’ I didn’t really know much else what to do," concert-goer Gabrielle Lewellyn said.

The man was dead by the time emergency workers arrived. Officials said 40 were hurt, including two with life-threatening injuries.

Crews cleaned up around the Apollo on Saturday, with forklifts pulling away loose bricks. Business owners picked up glass shards and covered shattered windows.

In Crawford County, Illinois, three people were killed and eight injured when a tornado hit near New Hebron, said Bill Burke, the county board chairman.

Sheriff Bill Rutan said 60 to 100 families were displaced.

“We’ve had emergency crews digging people out of their basements because the house has collapsed on top of them but luckily they had that safe space to go to,” he said at a news conference.

That tornado was not far from where three people died in Indiana's Sullivan County, about 150km south-west of Indianapolis.

Sullivan mayor Clint Lamb said an area south of the county seat of about 4,000 was “essentially unrecognisable right now" and several people were rescued overnight. There were reports of as many as 12 people injured, he said.

He said he was “really shocked” that more people had not been injured and added that recovery was “going to be a very long process".

In the Little Rock area, at least one person was killed and more than 50 hurt, some of them critically.

The National Weather Service said that tornado was "a high-end EF3 twister" with wind speeds up to 265kph and a path as long as 40km.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard.

On Saturday, Ms Sanders requested a major disaster declaration from President Joe Biden to support recovery efforts with federal resources.

Another tornado killed a woman in northern Alabama’s Madison County, officials said, and in northern Mississippi's Pontotoc County authorities confirmed one dead and four injured.

Tornadoes also caused damage in eastern Iowa and broke windows north-east of Peoria, Illinois.

The storms struck only hours after Mr Biden had visited Rolling Fork, Mississippi, where tornadoes last week destroyed parts of the town.

It could take days to determine the exact number of tornadoes from the latest event, said Bill Bunting, chief of forecast operations at the Storm Prediction Centre.

There were also hundreds of reports of large hailstones and damaging wind, he said.

“That’s a quite active day," he said. “But it’s not unprecedented.”

More than 530,000 homes and businesses were without power as of midday on Saturday, at least 200,000 of them in Ohio, according to PowerOutage.us.

The sprawling storm system also brought wildfires to the Southern Plains, with authorities in Oklahoma reporting nearly 100 on Friday.

At least 32 people were said to be injured and more than 40 homes destroyed.

The storms also caused blizzard conditions in the Upper Midwest.

A threat of tornadoes and hail remained for the North-east including in parts of Pennsylvania and New York.