26 dead as tornadoes hit US

Homes, businesses devastated as storms wreak havoc in 8 states

WYNNE, Arkansas — Storms that produced possibly dozens of tornadoes killed at least 26 people in small towns and big cities across the US South and Midwest, tearing through the Arkansas capital, Little Rock, and collapsing the roof of a packed concert venue in Illinois.

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 at least nine in one Tennessee county, four in the town of Wynne, Arkansas, three in Sullivan, Indiana, and four in Illinois.

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

Residents of Wynne, with a population of about 8,000 people, nearly 80 kilometers 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, their stumps reduced to nubs. Broken walls, windows and roofs pocked homes and businesses.

Debris that lay scattered inside the shells of homes and on lawns included clothing, insulation, toys, splintered furniture and 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 they were unhurt.

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

Recovery operations

As recovery operations began, workers used chain saws and bulldozers to clear the area, and utility crews were restoring power.

Nine people died in McNairy county, east of Memphis, Tennessee, said Patrick Sheehan, director of the state's Emergency Management Agency.

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

The Governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, drove to the county on Saturday to tour the destruction and comfort residents. The storm capped the worst week of his time as governor, he said, coming days after a school shooting in Nashville that killed six people.

In Memphis, police spokesman Christopher Williams said late on Saturday that there were three deaths believed to be weather-related: Two children and an adult who died when a tree fell on a house.

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

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

The National Weather Service said the tornado there had wind speeds of up to 265 km/h and a path as long as 40 km.

The Governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard, and she requested a major disaster declaration from President Joe Biden to support recovery efforts with federal resources.

Another suspected tornado killed a woman in Madison county, northern Alabama, officials said, and in Pontotoc county, northern Mississippi, authorities confirmed one death and four injuries.

More than 610,000 homes were without power on Saturday, according to the poweroutage.us website.

The sprawling storm system also brought wildfires to the Southern Plains, with authorities in Oklahoma reporting nearly 100 of them on Friday. At least 32 people were said to be injured, and more than 40 homes destroyed.

The storms struck just hours after Biden visited Rolling Fork, Mississippi, where tornadoes destroyed many of the community's 400 homes and killed 26 people two weeks ago.

Agencies Via Xinhua