At least 13 people, including children, died after severe thunderstorms that formed tornadoes struck the central United States overnight, also causing power outages and forcing residents to take shelter.
Meanwhile, more than 110 million people across wide areas of the US are under threat from hail, gusty winds and severe storms this Sunday (26).
As the storms move toward the American East Coast, the Storm Prediction Center warned of “violent tornadoes, extreme hail and widespread wind damage corridors.”
At least seven people in Cook County, Texas, died when severe storms hit the area Saturday night, Sheriff Ray Sappington told CNN . Among the dead were four young people, including a child aged 2 and 5.
The severe weather that hit Arkansas has already killed at least four people in the state.
“At least two storm-related deaths in Marion County due to severe weather that moved through the county in the early morning hours of Sunday,” Marion County Sheriff Gregg Alexander said in a news release.
The Baxter County Sheriff's Office in Arkansas said in a news release that there was one death in the county due to the morning storms and another person was killed in Benton County, the county's safety administrator told CNN .
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency Sunday afternoon to support parts of the state devastated by tornadoes.
“We remain in close contact with local authorities and will continue to do everything possible to help everyone in need,” the governor said in a message on X.
In northeastern Oklahoma, two people died and at least 23 were injured as a result of severe storms overnight, local officials told CNN .
After severe storms ripped through northeastern Oklahoma on Saturday night, 23 people were injured, electrical substations were knocked out and the city of Claremore was left without operational gas systems.
Among those injured, 19 were transported to hospitals, three with potentially critical or life-threatening injuries, Feary said.
Inside a Shell gas station in northeast Texas, 60 to 80 people were trapped until the storm passed, Sappington said. Several injuries were reported at the police station, but none of them were life-threatening, he added.
Many vehicles were damaged and destroyed, leaving around 40 people stranded. They were transported by bus to another gas station in Gainesville, where they were picked up by family members.
In northern Denton County, Texas, a possible tornado injured an unknown number of people, damaged several homes, overturned 18-wheelers, toppled trees and downed power lines Saturday night.
Storms move east
Nearly 400,000 customers in six states were without power Sunday afternoon, including more than 100,000 outages in Missouri and Arkansas, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us.
Thunderstorms that developed overnight in Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri are now moving east toward the lower Ohio River Valley, triggering a new tornado warning in parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.
The storms will move toward the East Coast on Monday, bringing disruptive high winds and large hail from Washington D.C. to the Southeast.
The unofficial start of summer is also bringing sweltering heat, reaching potentially record temperatures in parts of the US on Monday.
Houston; New Orleans; Miami; Mobile, Alabama, Tampa, Florida; and Charleston, South Carolina, are among the places where the warm weather will feel more July than late May during the holiday weekend.
Source: CNN Brasil
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