Severe thunderstorms and high winds rolled through the Great Plains region Saturday night, injuring residents, damaging homes and knocking out power to more than 50,000 electricity customers in Oklahoma and Texas, local officials said. Additionally, more than 20 tornadoes were reported overnight.
As of 2 a.m. local time, more than 13 million people from Texas to Illinois were under a tornado watch, with the possibility of a tornado forming in the next few hours. Severe weather continued Friday as tornadoes ripped through parts of Nebraska and Iowa, destroying dozens of homes.
Thunderstorms are expected to move east into the Mississippi Valley on Sunday, bringing heavy rain to Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana, the National Weather Service said.
Early reports indicate damage from the storm is concentrated in Oklahoma, with the Weather reporting that a series of tornadoes struck late Saturday night, hitting Sulfur City, Holdenville and Ardmore. The service reportedly hit parts of the state, including the city.
The state Office of Emergency Management said in a statement late Saturday night that there were injuries, downed power lines, flooded roads and damaged homes in multiple counties.
The threat of tornadoes across central Oklahoma had largely subsided by early Sunday morning, but the eastern and southeastern parts of the state remained at moderate risk until 5 a.m., officials said. Note Published by the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma.
Nearly 30 tornadoes touched down across the region between Saturday afternoon and early Sunday morning, including tornadoes in Kansas, Texas and Missouri on Saturday night, the National Weather Service said. It is said that he was
Ryan Jewell, a forecaster with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center, said Saturday's conditions were complicated by the sheer number of storms.
“They're starting to interact and there's some potential,” he says.
Tornadoes struck Nebraska and Iowa on Friday.
Tornadoes ripped through multiple areas of Nebraska and Iowa on Friday, injuring at least nine people as winds whipped the region. Dozens of houses were demolished and industrial buildings collapsed.
At a Saturday news conference in Douglas County, Nebraska, where more than 150 homes were damaged, Chris Franks of the National Weather Service described extensive damage caused by 165 mph winds.
“This is a powerful tornado and a rare tornado,” he said, describing a system that formed in the Lincoln area and another tornado that formed over Eppley Field in Omaha. “It is still unusual for a tornado, which has a less than 10 percent chance of occurring, to occur in and around a major metropolitan area, given that no one was killed or seriously injured.”
The National Weather Service said Friday it had received more than 100 reports of tornadoes in at least five Great Plains states.
Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen said he had visited several hard-hit areas and said it was “very humbling.”
Phil Enke, an elder at Harvest Alliance Church in Minden, Iowa, said his place of worship was destroyed in Friday's storm. Enke, 65, spent Saturday afternoon walking over broken wood and rubble, searching for documents and photographs that he could salvage.
“We were just trying to get something that couldn't be replaced,” Enke said.
“It’s messy and messy, but you just pick up the pieces and move on,” he added.
