At least 17 people have died as an outbreak of tornadoes ravished through the U.S. South and Midwest early Saturday morning, injuring multiple people across several states and leaving a path of destruction in their wake.
The monster storm system brought destructive winds as it moved east into the Mississippi Valley and the Deep South, unleashing dust storms, toppling tractor-trailers and fueling fast-spreading fires that engulfed homes.
More than 100 million people live in areas that can be affected by the extreme weather, forecasters said.
Across four counties in Missouri, at least 11 people have died, the state’s highway patrol said on social media in its mid-morning tornado aftermath update.
One man died after his home was ripped apart by a tornado, according to Butler County Coroner Jim Akers.
“It was unrecognizable as a home. Just a debris field,” he said.
In Arkansas, three storm-related deaths were confirmed in Independence County and 29 people were reported injured in eight other counties, the state’s division of emergency management said Saturday.
On Friday, car crashes caused by a blinding dust storm in the city of Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle, killed at least three people, according to Sgt. Cindy Barkley of the state’s department of public safety.
“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” Barkley said of the near-zero visibility. “We couldn’t tell that they were all together until the dust kind of settled.”
One pileup involved nearly 40 vehicles, officials estimate.
The National Weather Service has issued tornado warnings for parts of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, warning residents of “potentially violent, long-track tornadoes” that could “move very rapidly and pose a serious threat to life and property.”
Most of Mississippi and parts of Louisiana are under a “particularly dangerous situation tornado watch” until 6 p.m. central time. The rare warning is issued by the NWS when “long-lived and intense tornadoes are likely.”