Christmas Day cleanup after storms kill 14 in US

CHICAGO, United States - Rescue workers and heartbroken residents on Friday sifted through what was left of homes wiped out by several ferocious storms and tornadoes that killed at least 14 people in southeastern United States.

The storms, feeding on unseasonably warm air, left a trail of destruction in rural communities from Alabama to Illinois, just as Christmas reached its crescendo.

More than a dozen tornadoes were reported in six states, with the southern states of Mississippi and Alabama hardest hit. Seven people were confirmed dead there and another 60 injured, with one person missing, said the Mississippi emergency management agency.

"We are experiencing some flash flooding today, with storms coming through right now in five counties. And damage assessments are still ongoing," the emergency agency's Brett Carr told AFP.

Among the Mississippi dead was a seven-year-old boy who was killed when a storm picked up and tossed the car he was travelling in, fire chief Kenny Holbrook told reporters in the town of Holly Springs, where thousands greeted Christmas Day without power.

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency in seven counties after the storms caused widespread damage.

Governor Robert Bentley also declared a state of emergency across Alabama on Friday to deal with the effects of the storm.

Hours after the declaration, a tornado touched down in Birmingham, Alabama, the state's most populous city, uprooting trees, tearing off roofs and injuring three people, local media reported.

Six fatalities were confirmed in Tennessee, including three people found dead Thursday in a car submerged in a creek, according to the fire department in Columbia, Tennessee.

Another person was killed in Arkansas.

Georgia's governor declared a state of emergency in counties affected by the severe weather.

- Cleanup volunteers wanted –
Debris from ravaged buildings and other structures littered roads, making them impassable in parts of the southeast.

Officials across the affected region were inviting volunteers to help clean up or make donations as people who fled returned to their homes to see what, if anything, was still standing.

Television footage and pictures posted on social media showed homes flattened across the affected states, with possessions and Christmas presents strewn on the ground or left in a messy heap.

Power lines, trees and mobile phone towers were also toppled.

Therese Apel, a reporter at Mississippi's Clarion-Ledger newspaper, spoke with a north Mississippi family hard hit by the violent weather.

"The Wilkins family lost everything, but they told me, 'It's still Christmas. It's about family and being grateful,'" Apel posted on Twitter.

The worst appeared to be over, but forecasters at the National Weather Service warned severe weather was possible in several states including Mississippi, Missouri and Oklahoma. Flash floods in the US southeast were also a possibility.

The East Coast meanwhile was enjoying unseasonably warm weather, with temperatures in New York's iconic Central Park peaking at 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 Celsius) Thursday, the warmest Christmas Eve since records began in 1871.

The location set a Christmas Day record with temperatures reaching 66 degrees (19 Celsius) on Friday.

Atlanta, Georgia was also expected to set a record with temperatures reaching 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 Celsius).

The opposite was happening in other areas of the country.

"Ho Ho Ho! Vegas got snow!" reported the National Weather Service before dawn Friday, saying the trace of white tied the record set in 1941 for Christmas Day snow in normally balmier Las Vegas. That record was also tied in 1988 and 2008.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Three storm chasers killed by Oklahoma tornado

CHICAGO – Three veteran storm chasers were killed while pursuing powerful tornadoes that tore through the US state of Oklahoma, a relative said Sunday.

Tim Samaras, his son Paul and their storm-chasing partner Carl Young died Friday in a twister in El Reno, west of Oklahoma City.

They were the first storm researchers ever killed while chasing tornadoes, media reports said, citing the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

“They all unfortunately passed away but doing what they LOVED,” the elder Samaras’s brother Jim Samaras said on his Facebook page.

Tony Laubach, a fellow participant in the Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in Tornadoes Experiment, or TWISTEX, that Samaras founded, mourned the “devastating loss to the meteorological, research and storm-chasing communities.”

Samaras’s instruments are said to have offered the first-ever glimpse inside a tornado, and TWISTEX aimed to learn more about the storms in order to help increase the lead time in warnings.

A series of tornadoes battered Oklahoma with high winds, heavy rain and large hail, causing at least 11 fatalities in a state already reeling from a monster twister that claimed two dozen lives last month.

Debris from the chasers’ vehicle was strewn about half a mile (0.8 kilometers), Canadian County Undersheriff Chris West told AFP.

Only one of the bodies was recovered from the vehicle. The two others were found about a quarter of a mile in either direction.

Crews hauled away a badly mangled white truck with its windows smashed and its body crushed and twisted almost beyond recognition.

“Tim was a courageous and brilliant scientist who fearlessly pursued tornadoes and lightning in the field in an effort to better understand these phenomena,” National Geographic executive vice president Terry Garcia said in a statement.

The Washington-based institution had provided 18 grants to Samaras for his research.

It said he developed his interest in twisters after watching the film “The Wizard of Oz” when he was just six years old. The movie begins with a tornado sweeping heroine Dorothy and her dog Toto away to Munchkinland in Oz.

“Though we sometimes take it for granted, Tim’s death is a stark reminder of the risks encountered regularly by the men and women who work for us,” Garcia said.

Samaras developed probes to measure the environment inside tornadoes. Researchers had to place the probes in the path of the storm and then escape before being swept away.

He measured the lowest barometric pressure drop ever recorded (100 millibars) at the tornado’s center, saying that was equivalent to “stepping into an elevator and hurtling up 1,000 feet (305 meters) in 10 seconds.”

Samaras was also known as a star on the Discovery Channel’s show “Storm Chasers,” which ended last year.

His brother Jim Samaras said the storm chaser “looked at tornadoes not for the spotlight of TV, but for the scientific aspect.”

“At the end of the day, he wanted to save lives and he gave the ultimate sacrifice for that,” he told The Denver Post.

His final message on the social media site Twitter warned: “Storms now initiating south of Watonga along triple point. Dangerous day ahead for OK–stay weather savvy!”

And despite the big risks the storm chaser often took, Samaras was known to be very cautious and to pay attention to safety.

“He knew where not to be and in this case the tornado took a clear turn toward them,” Jim Samaras said.

Weather Channel anchor and meteorologist Mike Bettes had a close call himself in Oklahoma’s storms, and described them as highly unpredictable.

The tornado swept up the truck he was traveling in with a crew, throwing it 200 yards (meters) into a field and smashing it to the ground.

“I think this was just an erratic tornado. I think the size of it and the speed of it changed very, very quickly,” Bettes told CNN.

Bettes said the frightening experience left him unsure of whether he would ever chase storms again.

In a post on Facebook four days before he died, Tim Samaras wished fellow storm chasers well.

“Everyone enjoy the chase — and hope that tornadoes wander over open country,” he wrote.

“Most of all, I reflect and appreciate the freedom this incredible country has to offer, and the ultimate sacrifices so many have made to make it happen.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Five killed in Oklahoma tornadoes, storms move northeast

OKLAHOMA CITY - Tornadoes killed five people in central Oklahoma including a mother and her baby and menaced Oklahoma City and its hard-hit suburb of Moore, before the storm system tracked northeast early on Saturday.

The National Weather Service said the severe weather threat would shift into neighboring Illinois and Missouri, where Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency on Friday.

The tornadoes struck just 11 days after a twister ranked as EF5, the most powerful ranking possible, tore through Moore and killed 24 people.

The mother and baby were killed on Friday while traveling on Interstate 40, just west of Oklahoma City, when their vehicle was picked up by the storm and they were sucked out of it, said Betsy Randolph, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

The interstate was shut down due to the storm, with multiple crashes and injuries.

Two of the five deaths in Oklahoma on Friday occurred in Union City and one was in El Reno, in rural areas west of Oklahoma City, said Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. She could not confirm where the other deaths took place.

Over 40 people were being treated for storm-related injuries - including five in critical condition, among them a child, according to the Oklahoma-based Integris Health hospital system.

Meteorologists had earlier declared a tornado emergency for parts of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, and at one point they posted a tornado warning for Moore.

Moore had limited damage from the latest storm activity, said a police dispatcher for the city.

A tornado rampaged down Interstate 40 toward Oklahoma City, tipping over trucks and hurling hay bales, a witness said. Television images showed downed power lines and tossed cars as the storm systems dumped at least 3 inches of rain, stranding motorists in flood water.

"For reasons that are not clear to me, more people took to the roads, more than we expected. Everyone acted differently in this storm, and as a result, it created an extremely dangerous situation," said Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett.

"I think we are still a little shaken by what happened in Moore. We are still burying children and victims, so our emotions are still strong," he added.

Brandi Vanalphen, 30, was among the hundreds of drivers trapped on traffic-snarled roads as she attempted to flee the tornado system menacing the suburb of Norman.

"What got me scared was being stuck in traffic with sirens going off," she said. "I started seeing power flashes to the north, and I said 'screw this.' I started driving on the shoulder. People started driving over the grass."

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin told CNN that motorists faced great danger when stuck on any freeway in the path of a twister.

"What we saw from the tornadoes that came through Moore and the other ones last week was that people who were in cars on the Interstate were killed," Fallin told CNN.

CITYWIDE FLOODING

Tim Oram, meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said it was difficult to know exactly how many tornadoes had touched down, but three major thunderstorms with the potential to produce tornadoes moved through the center of the state.

The service later lifted a tornado warning for Oklahoma City and surrounding areas, as flash floods in the wake of the storms dunked parts of the sprawling metropolitan area - home to more than 1.3 million people - under water.

Storms also swept into neighboring Missouri, where Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency on the heels of what he said was several days of heavy rain.

Winds turned over semi-trailer trucks on Interstate 70 between St. Louis and St. Charles County to the west, said Brett Lord-Castillo, spokesman for the St. Louis County Emergency Management Agency.

Hollywood Casino in Maryland Heights was evacuated when part of its roof was blown off, Lord-Castillo said. No deaths or serious injuries were reported in the greater St. Louis area.

Power utilities Oklahoma Gas and Electric and Ameren said 200,000 customers were without power in Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois, which had been under a tornado warning on Thursday.

On Thursday, storms in Oklahoma and Arkansas killed at least three people, including Scott County, Arkansas, Sheriff Cody Carpenter, whose body was recovered early on Friday, said a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

A man also died in Tull, Arkansas, when a tree fell on his car, and a woman's body was found in flood waters in Scott County on Friday.

Large, long-lasting thunderstorms known as supercells are responsible for producing the strongest tornadoes, along with large hail and other dangerous winds.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

27 dead, one town 'gone' as tornadoes rip central US

CHICAGO - Rescue workers searched for survivors Saturday after more than six dozen tornadoes tore across the central United States, killing at least 27 people and wiping out whole communities.

Trucks and trees were tossed aside like candy Friday as deadly funnel clouds descended on five states.

The images were surreal: a school bus smashed through a brick home, trucks thrown into lakes, stately brick homes reduced to rubble and wooden ones smashed into kindling, mobile homes flipped like tin cans.

The death toll in Indiana reached 13 late Friday, officials said.

"Early reports indicate the heaviest damage is concentrated in southeastern Indiana including substantial damage in Henryville in Clark County, Marysville in Clark County, and Pekin and New Pekin in Washington County," the state Joint Information Center said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Kentucky Department of Public Health has confirmed a total of 12 fatalities.

A total of 13 tornadoes passed through that state on Friday, according to the Kentucky Emergency Management agency.

Two more deaths were reported by authorities in the neighboring state of Ohio.

Fire stations, schools and jails were among the buildings torn apart and a rescue squad car in Kentucky was flipped over and trapped under live power lines.

"I am constantly amazed by both the unpredictability and the ferocity of what Mother Nature can unleash when she chooses to," Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels told CNN.

"We've learned to be pretty humble out here about the way in which we mere mortals can prepare no matter how hard we try."

The latest wave of storms comes after a string of twisters killed 13 people earlier in the week.

The National Weather Service had received 83 reports of tornadoes in eight states by Friday evening, bringing the week's total to 133, though not all were confirmed.

More could be on their way as a "particularly dangerous" tornado watch was set to continue until early Saturday in four states in a massive storm that also carried golf-ball sized hail.

Officials in Clark County, Indiana were scrambling to deal with widespread damage from the storm after roads were blocked by fallen trees and debris, and power and phone lines were knocked out.

The hardest hit included the town of Marysville, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Louisville, Kentucky, which for all practical purposes has ceased to exist, officials said. "That's the information we have, that Marysville is no longer," US Senator Dan Coats of Indiana said in an interview with CNN.

The high school in Henryville suffered "quite a bit of damage," but luckily all the children were evacuated safely and only minor injuries -- some cuts and scrapes -- were reported, Major Chuck Adams, the sheriff department spokesman, told AFP.

Alabama's Madison county was also badly hit, with the weather service reporting "people trapped in rubble with injuries," houses destroyed, trees ripped from the ground a power lines down.

Six injuries were reported after 100 homes were damaged in Cleveland, Tennessee, the weather service said, and injuries were also reported in the town of New Pekin, Indiana.

This latest outbreak of twisters comes as people were still picking through rubble left behind by a series of twisters which struck six states on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The town of Harrisburg, Illinois was the hardest hit after it was ripped apart by a deadly twister that stayed on the ground for miles Wednesday, killing at least six people and injuring more than 100.

Some 545 people were killed by tornadoes in 2011, which was the deadliest tornado season since 1936 and the third worst on record, according to the national weather service.

source: interaksyon.com

Arizona Tornado

Several tornadoes in arizona touched down causing seven injuries and damages. Some sources state that it has passed through the area and a lot of damage in the city, especially vehicles that are left outside the houses. A lot of houses in this small town have also been severely damaged by the severe storm that was actually a tornado when he arrived in the area.

Chandler, Arizona, about 101 and Warner. 05/10/1910 Storm. Tornado possible! The storm brought strong winds and heavy rain. We could see the last race of our backyard fence, and then we saw the beginning of the myriad of turbulence, with debris that hit the east side of the house then in the basement.