Residents of the Midwest cleared away wreckage on Saturday following a wave of powerful storms that splintered homes, knocked out power to thousands and killed six people.
Hundreds of homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed on Friday in Kansas, Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri and 150,000 Missouri utility customers lost power. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency.
In southern Illinois, more than 56,200 customers of the utility Ameren still had no electricity late on Saturday, the company said.
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn on Saturday declared three southern counties disaster areas.
Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear declared an emergency in central and southeastern sections of his state on Saturday and West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin made the same declaration for six counties in that state.
Trees were down and windows were broken on the campus of Southern Illinois University’s Carbondale campus, but the school said weekend commencement ceremonies would go on scheduled. Friday’s graduation ceremonies were canceled.
Two people were killed near Poplar Bluff, Montana, when wind knocked a tree onto their sport utility vehicle. In Missouri’s Dallas County, a man in his 70s had a fatal heart attack after he and his wife were sucked from their home by a tornado and thrown into a field up to 30m away, said county emergency management director Larry Highfill. The wife was hospitalized in fair condition.
A 54-year-old woman was killed in southeast Kansas in a mobile home that was blown off its foundation. And in central Kentucky, officials blamed a tornado with winds of 193kph for the deaths of two people whose bodies were found in a pond near a mobile home community.
On Saturday, a line of thunderstorms stretched from Arkansas and northern Mississippi across Tennessee and Kentucky.
Some homes were evacuated early Saturday in southern West Virginia because of flooding caused by more than 5cm of rain, state Homeland Security Operations Director Paul Howard said. High water also closed several main roads. No injuries were reported.
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