Tornadoes and violent winds cause deadly damage in South and Midwest

Tornadoes and violent winds flattened homes and ripped apart buildings from Oklahoma to Indiana in a series of storms expected to bring record-setting rains and life-threatening flash floods across the nation’s midsection in the coming days. At least four people in western Tennessee and Missouri were killed in the first wave on Wednesday and early Thursday that spun off powerful tornadoes, one launching debris nearly five miles above the ground in Arkansas.

Dozens of tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings were issued from Texas to West Virginia. Potentially deadly flash flooding was also forecast for the South and Midwest as severe thunderstorms blowing eastward become supercharged. The potent storm system will bring “significant, life-threatening flash flooding” each day through Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

Forecasters attributed the violent weather to daytime heating combining with an unstable atmosphere, strong wind shear and abundant moisture streaming into the nation’s midsection from the Gulf.

Water rescue teams were being staged across the region and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was ready to distribute food, water, cots, generators and meals.

Sgt. Clark Parrott of the Missouri Highway Patrol said at least one person was killed in southeast Missouri, CBS affiliate KFVS-TV reported, while part of a warehouse collapsed in a suburb of Indianapolis, temporarily trapping at least one person inside. In northeast Arkansas, a rare tornado emergency was issued as debris flew thousands of feet in the air.

The Tennessee Department of Health confirmed to CBS News that the state had two weather-related fatalities, one in McNairy County, outside Memphis, and the other in Obion County, in northwest Tennessee.

A man was killed in a home damaged by the storm near Moscow, Tennessee, about 50 miles from Memphis, according to Ray Garcia, chief deputy of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office. Garcia also reported downed trees and power lines in the county, and officials are preparing for more rain and strong storms Thursday.

It looks like a swimming pool in my front yard,” he told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

On TikTok, a person posted a video of drivers in Nashville attempting to cross a flooded intersection, with some getting stuck in the floodwaters.

The coming days were also forecast to bring the risk of potentially deadly flash flooding to the South and Midwest as severe thunderstorms blowing eastward become supercharged.

With more than a foot of rain possible over the next four days, the prolonged deluge “is an event that happens once in a generation to once in a lifetime,” the weather service said. “Historic rainfall totals and impacts are possible.”

More than 90 million people were at some risk of severe weather in a huge part of the nation stretching from Texas to Minnesota and Maine, according to the Oklahoma-based Storm Prediction Center.

A tornado emergency — the weather service’s highest alert — was briefly declared around Blytheville, Arkansas, on Wednesday evening, with debris lofted at least 25,000 feet, according to Chelly Amin, a meteorologist with the service.

The Arkansas Division of Emergency Management reported that there was damage in 22 counties due to tornadoes, wind gusts, hail and flash flooding.

Volunteer firefighters and police officers in Lake City, Arkansas, searched through rubble and rescued people overnight. Residents were without electricity and some were also without water, Mayor Cameron Tate said in a Thursday morning Facebook post.

In far western Kentucky, four people were injured while taking shelter in a vehicle under a church carport, said the emergency management office in Ballard County. Multiple buildings and homes were badly damaged from what appeared to have been a tornado, the agency said.

Two workers were injured on Wednesday when the roof and a wall collapsed at a Sur La Table distribution center in Brownsburg, Indiana, a company spokesperson said in a statement.

Emergency crews worked for several hours to free a trapped worker there.

“It was just heavy debris that had fallen on top of her,” Brownsburg Fire Department spokesperson Kamrick Holding told WTHR-TV. “She happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The woman was conscious and talking during the rescue. Her condition was not immediately known.

Five semitrucks were blown over on Interstate 65 near Lowell, Indiana, state police reported.

At least 10 districts in Indiana canceled or delayed in-person classes on Thursday. Indianapolis Public Schools announced a remote learning day due to power outages at multiple buildings.

A tornado touched down in the northeastern Oklahoma city of Owasso on Wednesday, according to the weather service. There were no immediate reports of injuries, but the twister heavily damaged the roofs of homes and knocked down power lines, trees, fences and sheds.

More than 200,000 customers in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas were without power as of Thursday afternoon, according to FindEnergy.com, which tracks outages nationwide.

Additional rounds of heavy rain were expected in parts of Texas, the lower Mississippi Valley and the Ohio Valley from midweek through Saturday. Forecasters warned that they could track over the same areas repeatedly, producing dangerous flash floods capable of sweeping cars away.

Rain totaling up to 15 inches was forecast over the next week in northeastern Arkansas, the southeast corner of Missouri, western Kentucky and southern parts of Illinois and Indiana, the weather service warned, with some areas in Kentucky and Indiana at an especially high risk for flooding.