updated 6:43 PM EST, Thu March 1, 2012
- NEW: "The wind was just immense," a survivor recounts
- A new storm system could pose a threat Friday
- Harrisburg, Illinois, is among the hardest hit by earlier storms, with at least six deaths
- Three deaths have been reported in Tennessee
(CNN) -- Towns across the Midwest and South were cleaning up from a string of deadly tornadoes Thursday as forecasters warned a new system that could bring more twisters was forming.
The tornado outbreak that began Tuesday night left 13 dead across Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Tennessee and battered parts of Kentucky as well. The latest death was reported in Kansas, where authorities said 53-year-old Richard Slade died Thursday from injuries suffered when a tornado struck Harveyville on Tuesday night.
Slade had been airlifted to a nearby Topeka hospital after being pulled from the wreckage of his home. He remained in critical condition, and the decision was made to take him off life support, officials said.
National Guard troops helped police and sheriff's deputies direct traffic and patrol streets in stricken areas of Missouri and Kentucky, while those who survived began the task of rebuilding. But a developing storm over the mid-Mississippi River Valley could pose a moderate risk to parts of Tennessee, Kentucky and northern Alabama by Friday, forecasters said.
In Harrisburg, Illinois, where the highest death toll occurred, a tree smashed in the front window of Chris and Alice Retzloff's home before dawn Wednesday. But their neighbor's house was "pretty much gone," Chris Retzloff told CNN's "Starting Point."
"Our damage was minimal compared to this," his wife added.
"We have a basement, and we went in our basement and huddled together with our dogs and the sirens went off," she said. "The wind was just immense, the sound, and then the next siren went off, and there was just this incredible pressure that we all had on us."
Four women and two men died in Harrisburg, about 30 miles north of the Kentucky border. The tornado that struck it had a preliminary rating of EF4, the second most powerful on the rating scale, according to the National Weather Service.
The twister appeared to have been on the ground for several miles, said Harrisburg Mayor Eric Gregg, and the path of destruction was about three or four football fields wide. Sheriff's deputes said about 100 people were injured and between 250 and 300 houses were damaged or destroyed.
This Just In: Harrisburg's path of destruction
Debris and collapsed houses littered the ground in the southern part of Harrisburg. Commercial and residential buildings were crushed. A tractor-trailer could be seen lying on its side, off the highway.
Darrell Osman lost his mother to the storm. After the twister struck, he ran to her house, only to find nothing left.
"Her house was literally gone," Osman said. He found his mother in an ambulance, but she passed away later at a hospital.
In Washington, the White House said President Barack Obama called the governors of six states affected by the storms -- Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana -- "to offer condolences and assistance as necessary."
One person died in each of three towns in southern Missouri where the twisters struck -- Buffalo, Puxico and Cassville -- while another three died in two east-central Tennessee counties, authorities in those states reported.
A smaller tornado caused significant damage in the music resort city of Branson, Missouri.
"I woke up this morning and looked outside and saw houses were destroyed," said Steven Scharmanzer in Branson. "I've never seen anything like this in the 20 years I've lived here."
The city's entertainment district, which boasts 50 theaters, had five or six damaged; of the city's 200 hotels, 15 had significant damage, Branson Mayor Raeanne Presley said. But she told CNN, "We'll be open for business in short order, and we will be helping those who suffered damage to rebuild."
Presley took cover with her family in the basement before immediately going out to survey the damage.
Tourist town of Branson, Missouri, hit
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who declared a state of emergency, said the damage there was in at least the tens of millions, but there were no reported deaths. "We are confident that Branson will be back bigger and better than ever," Nixon said.
An EF2 tornado smashed at least seven miles of the city's commercial strip, leaving 33 people hurt, most with minor to moderate injuries.
The city's convention center and an attached Hilton were damaged, as was a portion of Branson Landing, a large shopping and entertainment complex.
City Administrator Dean Kruithof said about five or six of the city's roughly 40 theaters were damaged.
"We have so many people who want crews in here to clean up, who want to start rebuilding," Kruithof said.
iReport: Branson Hilton windows blown out
At least six counties in Kentucky also suffered storm damage. A shaken and bruised Steven Vaught of Greenville, Kentucky, recounted how he and his two dogs tumbled when his trailer rolled several times down the hill. They all survived.
"I got up, took two steps off the couch, and then me and the two dogs that were with me and the trailer started rolling down the hill," he said.
The trailer rolled over five times.
"Once it hit the ground on the fifth time, I saw daylight and I was sitting up against the stove," he said.
He retold the story through tears as he reflected on his survival. "It wasn't my time," he said.
Two twisters were reported Wednesday night near Hodgenville, Kentucky, and winds in excess of 100 mph were reported in northwestern Alabama.
CNN's Sean Morris, Logan Burruss, Kara Devlin and Joe Sutton contributed to this report.
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment