At Least 21 Dead After Midwest Storms
Last updated Sunday, May 11, 2008 8:00 PM CDT in News
By Murray Evans & Roxana Hegeman
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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SENECA, Mo. -- Crews and search dogs hunted Sunday for survivors or bodies in piles of debris after tornadoes and storms rumbled across northeast Oklahoma and southwest Missouri, killing at least 21.
In Seneca, search crews with dogs combed debris-strewn fields while a helicopter circled over the 12-mile-long path of the tornado. Residents picked through the mounds of debris of homes and businesses. Between 8,000 and 9,000 people were reported without power, which is expected to take at least a week to restore.
Susan Roberts, 61, stared at the smashed remains of her classic 1985 Cadillac sitting on her living room floor -- the only thing left of her home. A woman who apparently had sought shelter in the car died there, she said.
"That is what is tearing me up," Roberts said, adding she had warned the woman -- who had stopped to change a tire -- about the nearby tornado.
The same storm system started in Oklahoma, where it killed six people before moving into southwest Missouri, where 14 people died. On Sunday, storms in Georgia killed at least one person there.
In central Arkansas, the weather service said Sunday that no one was seriously injured when a suspected EF-3 tornado swept through Stuttgart.
Workers were surveying damage Sunday to determine the strength of the Stuttgart twister. Meteorologist Joe Goudsward said they're also investigating whether a tornado struck the small Woodruff County town of Tipp.
Goudsward said three people were injured in the Stuttgart tornado, but that they'd all been treated and released from the hospital by Sunday afternoon. He said there was "substantial structural damage" in Stuttgart. Hail was reported throughout much of the state as part of the severe weather.
More severe weather is on its way to the state. Tuesday's forecast calls for severe thunderstorms with possible tornadoes.
Susie Stonner, the spokeswoman for the Missouri Emergency Management Agency, said one person was killed in Jasper County, one was killed in Barry County, and 12 were reported killed in Newton County near the border with Oklahoma.
"We are finding more unfortunately," Stonner said. "There may be one or two more."
Stonner said it was unclear how many homes were damaged or destroyed. But she said Newton County officials had initial estimates of 50 homes damaged or destroyed there.
The tornado that swept through the area was about 300 yards wide and stayed mostly on the ground for about 12 miles. It hit the rural area about eight miles north of Seneca and went east, said Keith Stammer, the director of emergency management in Jasper County. The tornado stayed on the ground about 15 minutes.
Next door to Roberts, Jane Lant climbed over splintered wood to go through the mud-caked remains of her bridal shop.
"I just feel so awful, going through this rubble when they are out looking for bodies," she said as she motioned to the search dogs wandering the field behind her. An unidentified body lay under a blue tarpaulin nearby.
Among the dead were five family members of her neighbor who had been going to a wedding when the tornado caught their vehicle on the highway in front of her store, she said. Her neighbor, an insurance agent, had just come back from Oklahoma after checking on damage there when his son drove into their driveway to tell him that his mother, sister, brother-in-law, nephew and a daughter-in-law's grandfather had been killed.
Hours later Lant had recovered one wedding dress along with boxes of tuxedo shoes.
"This is just surreal," she said.
Six people died in Picher, Okla., once a bustling mining center of 20,000 that dwindled to about 800 people as families fled lead pollution there, and officials held out hope that they wouldn't find any more bodies.
Frank Geasland, Ottawa County's emergency manager, said a government-sponsored buyout of homes in the town left some residences vacant, and this may have prevented a greater loss of life.
The tornado could be the final straw for those remaining residents who have been reluctant to leave, said John Sparkman, the head of the local housing authority. "I think people probably have had enough," he said.
"There's just nothing to build back to any more," he added.
The twister was the deadliest in Oklahoma since one on May 3, 1999, that killed 44 people in the Oklahoma City area.
The National Weather Service estimated that at least eight tornadoes were spawned in Oklahoma.
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Sel wrote on May 12, 2008 9:19 AM: