A week after a violent tornado touched down in Mississippi, killing twenty-five people and causing immense property damage, powerful storms hit several American states on Friday March 31, killing at least twenty-one people and causing extensive property damage. . The latest toll reported eighteen dead.
On Saturday, more than 650,000 homes were without power in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia according to the American site PowerOutagewhile the northeast of the country is preparing for possible powerful thunderstorms.
Seven people have died in McNairy County, Tennessee due to the “severe weather”announced Maggie Hannan, spokeswoman for the Tennessee disaster management agency, to AFP on Saturday.
Several states affected from north to south
They are added to the fourteen other victims in the states of Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama, in the South, as well as in those of Indiana and Illinois, in the center-east of the country.
The violent tornado that swept across Arkansas killed at least five people and injured around 30. Two people thus died in the small town of Wynne which was “basically cut in two by the damage from east to west”said Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who declared a state of emergency and deployed about 100 National Guardsmen. “Central Arkansas suffered significant damage”has she tweeted.
A third person died in Pulaski County, where the state capital Little Rock is located, hard hit by the tornado, as local authorities confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP). “Thirty people were transported to hospitals” of the city, has also declared to the press Frank Scott, the mayor of Little Rock. “We know that many people have had to be displaced and are looking for refuge”he added.
Mississippi Disaster Management Services also reported one death and several injuries in Pontotoc County, about 200 miles south of Memphis. An elderly person was also killed in Alabama when a tornado hit his house, detailed the authorities of the city of Huntsville, near the border with Tennessee.
Gaping hole in the roof of the concert hall
In the north of the country, in the small town of Belvidere, west of Chicago, in the State of Illinois, part of the roof and the facade of the Apollo Theater collapsed during a violent storm, and during the concert of a heavy metal band.
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Shawn Schadle, Belvidere Fire Chief, reported one dead and 28 injured, including five hospitalized with serious injuries. More than twenty ambulances were mobilized, according to the local press. Television footage showed injured spectators being evacuated on stretchers, and photos on social media of the concert hall showed a waist-deep pile of debris and a gaping hole in the roof.
In Crawford County, three people were killed by a home collapse, Illinois Emergency Management Agency spokesman Kevin Sur said.
In the neighboring state of Indiana (north), three people were killed by a storm in Sullivan County, reported the television channel WTHI quoting the local police.
Gutted homes in Arkansas
The Arkansas tornado hit in the afternoon, sweeping through several neighborhoods in Little Rock. The US National Weather Service (NWS) has also issued tornado warnings for parts of neighboring states, such as Tennessee, Illinois and Iowa.
The latter left in its wake a spectacle of desolation, with overturned cars, huge uprooted trees, telephone poles broken in two and hundreds of gutted houses.
Lara Farrar, a reporter for a local business publication, reported being “totally in shock” upon discovering the damage near her home in Little Rock. “The roof of some buildings was completely blown off”she testified, sharing images of destroyed houses, the walls partially torn down, trees on the ground.
“The neighborhood was simply completely razed and destroyed”she added, referring to significant destruction on a strip about 500 meters wide, but with “very little damage” outside.
The National Weather Service has also warned of high winds, potential tornadoes and severe storms that could hit the northeast of the country, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York State, on Saturday, with gusts of up to 95 km/h.
Tornadoes, meteorological phenomena as impressive as they are difficult to predict, are common in the United States, especially in the center and south of the country. As of December 2021, about eighty people had also lost their lives following a series of tornadoes in Kentucky.
