In US history the worse hurricane has risen the death toll to 84. According to the foreign news agency, due to the tornadoes, the inhabited cities became piles of rubble in a matter of moments. According to reports, the tornadoes were so severe that they blew up everything that came in front of them. There was so much destruction in 6 states that houses, schools, shopping centers, factories, hospitals were left with nothing.
Numerous vehicles were buried under the rubble of buildings, trees were uprooted, electricity poles fell and thousands of people lost power.
It’s devastating to see the amount of damage there and to know there were people inside when that happened,” Edwardsville Police Chief Michael Fillback told CNN affiliate KMOV on Saturday morning.
Fillback said police did not know how many people were in the building at the time of the collapse, nor how many people may still be trapped inside.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said he’d reached out to the Edwardsville mayor to offer assistance.
My prayers are with the people of Edwardsville tonight, and I’ve reached out to the mayor to provide any needed state resources. Our @ILStatePolice and @ReadyIllinois are both coordinating closely with local officials, and I will continue to monitor the situation,” the governor said in a tweet.
In Kentucky, the state police warned of likely fatalities after “severe tornado events” across multiple counties. “While no fatalities have been confirmed at this time, loss of life is expected,” the agency tweeted late Friday night.
There was significant damage reported in Mayfield, a town of approximately 10,000 people. Photos from CNN affiliate WPSD showed damage to the Graves County Courthouse and adjoining jail.
Power outages across several states
Tornadoes were reported in Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center.
Overall, more than 55 million people nationwide were at risk for severe storms Friday.
By early Saturday, at least 157,000 customers had lost power across six states, according to poweroutage.us.
This dynamic, sprawling storm will impact more than half the country. It’s a classic clash of air masses,” said CNN meteorologist Gene Norman.
Earlier, tornado watches were issued for central and eastern Arkansas, southeastern Missouri, northwestern Mississippi, western Tennessee, western Kentucky, southern Illinois, and southwestern Indiana, according to the Storm Prediction Center.
The watch was in effect until 11 p.m. CST and included Memphis, Tennessee; Little Rock, Arkansas; Paducah, Kentucky; and Evansville, Indiana.
A second tornado watch was issued Friday evening for portions of Missouri and Illinois. The watch is also in effect until 11 p.m. CST and includes St. Louis, Jefferson City and Springfield in Missouri and Springfield and Quincy in Illinois
By mid-evening Friday, five tornado watches stretched from northeastern Texas and eastern Oklahoma to central Tennessee and Kentucky. One of the newest watches includes Nashville and Louisville, Kentucky, and was in effect until 2 a.m. CST.
Winter returns for a large section of the US
Meanwhile, to the north of the weather system, snow was forecast for a large part of the country from the Intermountain West to the Upper Great Lakes through Saturday. Over 10 million Americans are under some form of winter weather alert from this system.
The Minnesota State Patrol responded to 136 crashes prior to 4 p.m. on Friday, according to a tweet by the agency. Eight of those accidents were jackknifed semi-trucks. Thirteen were injury accidents.
The Twin Cities area is currently under a snow emergency.
Light snow fell Friday morning at Denver’s International Airport, meaning the area finally recorded its first measurable snow of the season, defined as a 10th of an inch or greater.
This brings an end to the record snow drought the city had been experiencing. Since 1882, the city had never made it into December without measurable snow. The previous record for the latest measurable snow was November 21, 1934.
The city also went 232 consecutive days without measurable snow, the second-longest streak in recorded history. The record is 235 days: from March 5 to October 25, 1887.
The snow is expected to be light in Denver, with the forecast calling for around 1 inch of accumulation today, with higher tallies in the mountains to the West.
The worst-hit area was Mayfield, Kentucky, where 70 people were killed and 40 were rescued from the rubble of a single factory. US President Joe Biden says the devastation caused by the worst hurricane in US history is unbelievable.
The governor of the US state of Kentucky, Andy Bass Herr, has warned of more than 100 deaths while a curfew has been imposed in the state. The death toll from the worst hurricane in US history has risen to 84