On Friday and Saturday, storms that killed at least 18 people in Arkansas, Mississippi and Missouri continued to hit much of the South, upgrading homes, tearing down power lines and turning communities into debris fields.
Before the arrival of a strong and persistent tornado, forecasters said their threat levels were usually only once or twice in a lifetime.
Missouri Highway Patrol reported 12 people died in the state as of Saturday afternoon.
According to the Arkansas Emergency Management Department, three people were killed in Independence County and 32 were injured in the state.
Jordan Hill, southern Mississippi, died about 80 miles south of Mississippi. Chief Hill said one of the killers was a teenager.
The National Weather Service tornado investigation team said it found the damage suffered in Ark Cave City on Friday night is consistent with the winds of 165 miles per hour.
The Storm Prediction Center reported at least 33 tornadoes Friday and 16 tornadoes Saturday, although those figures are likely to change in the coming days.
“We know we have some violent tornadoes hit the community today,” William Bunting, deputy director of the Storm Prediction Center, said on Saturday night. “In the days to come, we will get some details about the communities that have been hit hard. We will not know the real scope of the impact for a few days.”
In the severely damaged Qualls eral funeral hall on Cave City Street, the rebuilt vault was flipped and scattered on a concrete slab, which was earlier in the day when it was the storage building behind the funeral hall.
The buzz of generators and chain saws filled the city’s air as neighbors gathered to help clean up 2,000 cities on Saturday afternoon. In a flat residential area east of the city center, a bottle of water and pizza are being distributed.
“We are all a big family,” said resident Lisa Coles. “It will be devastating, but we will all be united.”
By Saturday afternoon, a storm hit part of Louisiana and Mississippi. The Weather Bureau reported that the tornado was near Kentwood, Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi, and Pike County, Mississippi and Tuscaloosa County, Alabama.
In two separate cases Saturday, the area near Taylor Township, Mississippi was hit by a tornado, Bunting said. This is not uncommon in such a storm, he said.
By late afternoon, the storm is expected to cross Tennessee in Alabama and Tennessee, and then cross Georgia and North Florida.
The threat of tornadoes and thunderstorms will be in the south on Sunday and will shift eastward, although at much lower levels than Saturday, with minimal risk of severe storms and tornados from northern Florida to Washington.
Central Mississippi and Alabama faced the highest risk warning in the rating system of the Storm Prediction Center, namely Level 5 on Saturday.
Storms on this level usually produce strong long-distance tornadoes, meaning they last for a long time on the ground. Slow storms usually affect only one or two communities, but faster storms cross multiple states, leaving a long damage.
Saturday’s Weather Services Department released the tornado watches in eastern Louisiana, with almost all Mississippi and western Alabama facing “particularly dangerous situations”, a high risk of violent tornadoes.
NOAA study analyzed tornado watches from 1996 to 2005, and only 7% of tornado watches received additional warnings that areas under these alerts could suffer three times as much as those of destructive tornadoes.
A tornado hit Tedland Avenue in Bridgeton, Missouri on Friday night. Residents said Saturday that about eight homes were damaged. Resident Matthew Adams describes the ferocity of the storm.
“I just heard a huge boom, crashed, came out, and once it came out, I didn't even know my house was hurt,” he said. “I just saw the neighbor's house here, through her garage trees.”
Rich Gould's home had only damaged siding and fences, but the wind ripped open the neighbor's garage, ripped off the walls, and approached nearby trees.
He said a gazebo in the area turned into airborne, like flying into the forest from a house in the Wizard of Oz.
At least one person was trapped in a home that suffered severe damage on a rural road near Poplar Bluff, Missouri, said Robbie Myers, director of the Butler County Emergency Management Department.
He said more than 500 houses, a church and a grocery store were also damaged. He said a mobile park was destroyed. State emergency officials said late Friday night that the storm caused widespread damage, including the city of Rolla.
These storms are all associated with a strong system that has caused severe damage in the central U.S., which brings sandstorms and wildfires to the plains.
Tornadoes usually occur from mid-March to late April, when the risk shifts to the plains.
The recent tornado outbreak occurred on March 31 and April 1, 2023, when 146 tornadoes (many less powerful breeds) killed 26 people, Bunting said.
It is the third largest outbreak of tornadoes in the United States.
Several larger outbreaks, often referred to as “super outbreaks”, have caused more damage and death, including three of them in particular “trial all other outbreaks.”
From April 11 to 12, 1965, it was hit by nearly 50 tornadoes, damaged by six states and killed 260 people. Less than a decade later, from April 3 to 4, 1974, it was reported that a tornado was hit in central the United States and southern Canada, killing 335 people.
Recently, from April 25 to 28, 2011, it was reported that there were more than 200 tornadoes in five Southeast states. Mr Bonting said April 27 was the deadliest day, and according to Mr Bonting, 122 tornadoes killed 321 people.
Reported by Gwen Moritz Jennifer A. Brown of Cave City, Arkansas, Bridgeton, Missouri Amy Graff,,,,, Simon J. Levien,,,,, Judson Jones,,,,, Qasim Nauman and Jonathan Wolfe.
