At least 21 killed as tornadoes strike parts of the South and Midwest
WYNNE, Ark. — Storms that brought possibly dozens of tornadoes killed at least 21 people in small towns and big cities across the South and Midwest, tearing a path through the Arkansas capital, collapsing the roof of a packed concert venue in Illinois and stunning people throughout a wide region Saturday with the damage’s scope.
Confirmed or suspected tornadoes in at least eight states destroyed homes and businesses, splintered trees, and laid waste to neighborhoods across a broad swath of the country. The dead included seven in Tennessee’s McNairy County, four in the small town of Wynne, Ark., and three in Indiana’s Sullivan County.
Other deaths from the storms that hit Friday night into Saturday were reported in Alabama, Illinois and Mississippi, along with one near Little Rock, Ark., where the mayor said more than 2,600 buildings were in a tornado’s path.
Stunned residents of Wynne, a community of about 8,000 people 50 miles west of Memphis, Tenn., woke Saturday to find the high school’s roof shredded and its windows blown out. Huge trees lay on the ground, their stumps reduced to nubs. Broken walls, windows and roofs pocked homes and businesses.
Debris and memories of regular life lay scattered inside the damaged shells of homes and strewn on lawns: clothing, insulation, roofing paper, toys, splintered furniture, a pickup truck with its windows shattered.
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 seriously damaged their home, but no one in the family was hurt.
“We could feel the house shaking, we could hear loud noises, dishes rattling. And then it just got calm,” she said.
A bystander captured video showing a tornado that got too close for comfort on Wednesday. The tornado had winds up to 110 mph.
Recovery was already underway, with workers using chain saws to cut fallen trees and bulldozers moving material from shattered structures. Utility trucks worked to restore power. Groups of volunteers gathered to plan their day.
At least seven people died in Tennessee’s McNairy County, east of Memphis along the Mississippi border, said David Leckner, the mayor of Adamsville.
“The majority of the damage has been done to homes and residential areas,” Leckner said, adding that although it appeared all people had been accounted for, crews were going door to door to be sure.
In Belvidere, Ill., some of the 260 people attending a heavy-metal concert at the Apollo Theatre pulled a 50-year-old man from the rubble after part of the roof collapsed; he was dead when emergency workers arrived. Officials said 40 other people were injured, including two with life-threatening injuries.
“They dragged someone out from the rubble, and 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,” concertgoer Gabrielle Lewellyn told WTVO-TV.
The venue’s Facebook page said the bands scheduled to perform were Morbid Angel, Crypta, Skeletal Remains and Revocation.
Crews worked Saturday to clean up around the Apollo, with forklifts pulling away loosely hanging bricks. Business owners picked up shards of glass and covered shattered windows.
Across and down the street from the Apollo stood a mural with an oversized black-and-white photograph of schoolchildren battling strong winds and rain after an especially violent tornado ravaged the rural town on April 21, 1967, killing 24.
Three people died in Indiana’s Sullivan County, near the Illinois line about 95 miles, southwest of Indianapolis.
Sullivan Mayor Clint Lamb said at a news conference that an area south of the county seat of about 4,000 “is essentially unrecognizable right now” and that several people were rescued from rubble overnight. There were reports of as many as 12 people injured, he said, and search-and-rescue teams combed damaged areas.
Tornadoes tore through Mississippi as severe weather that produced hail the size of golf balls moved through several Southern states.
“Quite frankly, I’m really, really shocked there isn’t more as far as human issues,” he said, adding that recovery “is going to be a very long process.”
In the Little Rock area, at least one person was killed and more than 50 were hurt, some critically, authorities said.
The National Weather Service said the tornado was a high-end EF-3 twister with wind speeds up to 165 mph and a path as long as 25 miles.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard to help local responders.
A suspected tornado killed a woman in northern Alabama’s Madison County, said county official Mac McCutcheon. And in northern Mississippi’s Pontotoc County, officials confirmed one death and four injuries.
The storms struck just hours after President Biden visited the Mississippi community of Rolling Fork, where tornadoes last week destroyed parts of town.
At least 25 people were killed and dozens of others were injured in Mississippi and another was killed in Alabama as the storms hit the South.
Tornadoes also caused damage in eastern Iowa, and broke windows on cars and buildings northeast of Peoria, Ill.
It could take days to determine the exact number of tornadoes, said Bill Bunting, chief of forecast operations at the Storm Prediction Center. There were also hundreds of reports of large hail and damaging winds, he said.
“That’s a quite active day,” he said. “But that’s not unprecedented.”
Hundreds of thousands lost power because of the sprawling storm system that also brought wildfires to the southern Plains and blizzard conditions to the Upper Midwest. A threat of tornadoes and hail remained for the Northeast, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and New York.
More than 530,000 homes and businesses in the affected area lacked power at midday Saturday, over 200,000 of them in Ohio, according to PowerOutage.us.
Blizzard conditions whipped parts of Minnesota, the Dakotas and Wisconsin, cutting power to tens of thousands in the Twin Cities area. Parts of Interstate 29 were closed.
Nearly 100 new wildfires were reported Friday in Oklahoma, according to the state forest service. Fires were expected to remain a danger through the next week.
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