OKLAHOMA CITY – Rescue and clean-up efforts were under way across the American Midwest yesterday after dozens of tornadoes tore through the region, killing at least five people in Oklahoma, leaving thousands without power in Kansas and damaging up to 90 per cent of the homes and buildings in one small Iowa town.
Storms skipped across what is often called “Tornado Alley” in the US central and southern plains, but the high winds and dozens of tornadoes mostly struck rural areas, sparing the region from even worse damage.
There was a moderate risk of more “significant” tornadoes later yesterday from southeast Minnesota through a large part of Wisconsin and northeast Iowa, according to National Storm Prediction Centre meteorologist Greg Dial.
Earlier yesterday, a twister struck the northwest Oklahoma city of Woodward, where storm sirens failed to sound after lightning apparently disabled its warning system, the mayor, Roscoe Hill, said.
A total of 29 people were treated at Woodward Regional Hospital, chief executive officer Dave Wallace said. Of these, five were in critical condition and moved to other hospitals.
Two children died at a mobile home park in Woodward, a town of 12,000 people, while two adults were killed in a small community just outside the city limits, Mr Hill said. Details of the fifth death were not immediately known, said Keli Cain, spokeswoman for Oklahoma Emergency Management.
“This thing took us by surprise,” Mr Hill said. “It’s kind of overwhelming.”
Woodward city manager Alan Riffel told CNN that all the missing people had been accounted for, and that 89 homes and 13 businesses had been destroyed.
A tornado that struck Woodward in April 1947 still ranks as the deadliest in Oklahoma history, with 116 people killed, according to the National Weather Service.
In tiny Thurman, Iowa, with a population of 250, an estimated 75-90 per cent of the town’s buildings and homes were damaged or destroyed by the storm. – (Reuters)