Tornadoes roar through central U.S., killing two
Residents ELK CITY, OKLA. — of an Oklahoma subdivision and a Wisconsin trailer park that were leveled by deadly tornadoes sifted through what remained of their homes and possessions Wednesday, even as forecasters warned of another round of powerful storms on the horizon.
The twisters were among up to 29 that were reportedly spawned by powerful storms that raced through a swath of the central U.S. stretching from Texas to the Great Lakes on Tuesday evening, destroying dozens of homes, killing two people and injuring dozens of others.
The tornadoes, some of them still unverified a day later, touched down in five states: Wisconsin and Oklahoma, which each had one death and about 40 homes destroyed, and Texas, Kansas and Nebraska. The governors of Wisconsin and Oklahoma toured the destruction in their states on Wednesday, and residents were allowed to sift through the wreckage.
The tornado that struck Elk City, a community of about 13,000 people roughly 110 miles west of Oklahoma City, sounded like “constant thunder,” said local Dennis Knight.
Knight said that when the winds died down and he emerged from his cellar, he saw one of his metal barns had been tossed on top of one of his other barns. His home was fine, but his camper had been hurled across the street.
One of Knight’s neighbors, 53-year-old Bo Mikles, was killed while he was apparently fleeing his home in his truck, which was thrown several hundred feet, said Danny Ringer, the Elk City Fire Department chaplain.
“As a community we’ll pull together. It’s always been a resilient community and the people are willing to help each other,” said Knight.
A tornado also ripped through a mobile home park near the northwestern Wisconsin city of Chetek, about 110 miles northeast of Minneapolis. It destroyed dozens of homes, killed a man, 46-year-old Eric Gavin, and injured at least 25 other people, some seriously, authorities said.
Dale Daily, 61, said he heard the warning siren about a half-hour before the tornado hit the mobile home park. He said he and his wife drove away to safety and returned just after the twister left the area to find the park in ruins.
Daily said he walked among the debris and helped free a man who was buried under a refrigerator and debris.
“He had some bad head trauma going on and I didn’t want him to go to sleep,” Daily said.
Gary Schulz, who owns a rental storage business near the Prairie Lake Estate Mobile Home Park, said a twister claimed his business eight years ago but spared it this time around. Many of his neighbors in the trailer park weren’t so fortunate.
“It was just chaos. It was just people searching for family members, for their pets, belongings,” Schulz said of the aftermath.
Several poultry barns at a turkey processing plant across the street from the trailer park were badly damaged, and turkeys could be seen wandering in the debris.
One of the tornadoes that touched down Tuesday night destroyed about 20 homes in central Kansas.
Tuesday’s storms were part of two supercells that formed in the Texas Panhandle before moving to the north and east. National Weather Service meteorologist Tom Hultquist said the storms covered so much ground and were so powerful because of a combination of factors, including the dry Texas air that fed them and strong winds in the Great Lakes area.
The region could be in for more potentially damaging storms Thursday. Hultquist said a low-pressure system moving north from Nebraska was expected to bring strong thunderstorms to southeastern Minnesota and western portions of central and southern Wisconsin.
“There is definitely the potential for all the severe weather hazards,” including tornadoes and hail, Hultquist said.