US tornadoes: At least 26 dead after winds rip through southern and Midwest states (UPDATE)

Sami Quadri
Evening Standard
Sat, 01 Apr 2023 10:17 UTC

© Andrew DeMillo/AP

A car is upturned in a parking lot after the severe storm swept through Little Rock

At least six people have been killed after a tornado ripped through including US states in Arkansas and Illinois.

One person died while more than two dozen were left injured in the Little Rock area, Arkansas authorities said.

The town of Wynne in northeastern Arkansas was also devastated, and officials reported two people had died, along with destroyed homes and people trapped in the debris. Two other fatalities were reported in Sullivan County Indiana.

Authorities said a theatre roof collapsed during a tornado in Belvidere, Illinois, killing one person and injuring 28.

The Belvidere Police Department said the collapse occurred as a heavy storm rolled through the area and that calls began coming in at 7.48 pm.

The collapse occurred at the Apollo Theatre during a heavy metal concert in the town located about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northwest of Chicago.

Belvidere Fire Department Chief Shawn Schadle said 260 people were in the venue. He said first responders also rescued someone from an elevator and had to grapple with downed power lines outside the theatre.

Belvidere Police Chief Shane Woody described the scene after the collapse as "chaos, absolute chaos."

Gabrielle Lewellyn had just entered the theatre when a portion of the ceiling collapsed.

"I was there within a minute before it came down," she told WTVO-TV. "The winds, when I was walking up to the building, it went like from zero to a thousand within five seconds."

There were more confirmed twisters in Iowa and wind-whipped grass fires blazed in Oklahoma, as the storm system threatened a broad swath of the country home to some 85 million people.

In Illinois, Ben Wagner, chief radar operator for the Woodford County Emergency Management Agency, said hail broke windows on cars and buildings in the area of Roanoke, northeast of Peoria. More than 109,000 customers had lost power in the state as of Friday night.

More outages were reported in Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Indiana and Texas.

Comment: Al Jazeera reports:

Death toll tops 26 as tornadoes tear through US Midwest and South

Survivors recount flying debris, destroyed buildings after storms that spawned several tornadoes hit at least eight states in the US.

At least 26 people have been killed and dozens more injured after storms and tornadoes tore through towns and cities across Southern and Midwestern parts of the United States.

Several tornadoes touched down on Friday night across at least eight states, laying waste to homes and businesses and splintering trees, as part of a sprawling storm system that brought wildfires to the southern plains states and blizzard conditions to the upper Midwest.

Tens of thousands lost power as the storms smothered a swath of the country home to some 85 million people.

The dead included nine in the state of Tennessee, four in neighbouring Arkansas, and four in Illinois. Other deaths were reported in the states of Indiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

In Arkansas, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency and activated 100 members of the National Guard to help local authorities respond.

Four of the deaths in Arkansas were reported in the town of Wynne, a community of about 8,000 people. Stunned residents of the town 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 and memories of regular life lay scattered inside the shells of homes and on lawns: clothing, insulation, roofing paper, toys, splintered furniture, a pick-up truck with its windows shattered.

Ashley Macmillan told The Associated Press news agency that 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.

Recovery was already under way, with workers using chainsaws to cut fallen trees and bulldozers moving material from shattered structures. Utility trucks worked to restore power.

In the Little Rock area in Arkansas, at least one person was killed and more than two dozen were hurt, some critically, authorities said.

Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott said that 2,100 homes and businesses were in the tornado's path, but that no assessment had been done on how many were damaged.

Don Nichols, manager of a piano business in Little Rock, said he took cover under the stairs of his store when the tornado hit.

"We only had a little damage to our store. Just a window was blown out and the ceiling tiles dropped," he told Al Jazeera. "But the restaurant next door to us is closed. The walls were literally pulled out."

In Tennessee, at least seven people died in McNairy County, east of the city 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.