At least three people are dead after a powerful storm system ripped through the South and Midwest, spawning violent tornadoes and devastating the city of Little Rock, Arkansas.
The first death was reported in North Little Rock, after a tornado leveled buildings, tore up trees and overturned vehicles, Pulaski County spokesperson Madeline Roberts confirmed to CNN.
There were at least 50 hospitalizations reported in the area and more were expected, Roberts said.
East of Little Rock, two people died after the system blew through Wynne, St. Francis County Coroner Miles Kimble told the outlet. Kimble had traveled to Cross County to assist.
Wynne Mayor Jennifer Hobbs told CNN that the city was “still in triage mode” after the storm “cut [the city] in half by damage from east to west.”
Footage from the area shows entire blocks leveled by the strong winds, with debris strewn about where homes and businesses once stood.
The National Weather Service first declared a tornado emergency with possibly “catastrophic” damages around 2:30 p.m. local time after the twister touched down in the western part of the capital city and shredded a small shopping center that included a Kroger grocery store.
It then crossed the Arkansas River into North Little Rock and surrounding cities, where widespread damage to homes, businesses and vehicles was reported.
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Center in Little Rock was operating at a mass casualty level, a spokesperson told the Associated Press.
Several had already been transported to the hospital, with at least one reportedly in critical condition.
Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr., tweeted earlier in the evening that officials were aware of 24 people who had been hospitalized in the city.
“Property damage is extensive and we are still responding,” he said.
The Little Rock Fire Department reported heavy damage and debris in the western end of the city, writing on its Facebook page that firefighters were performing rescue operations in the area.
A photo shared by the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office showed a massive, mangled tractor-trailer overturned and completely blocking several lanes of Highway 67 in Jacksonville, just northeast of Little Rock.
Passengers and airport employees at Clinton National Airport were forced to take shelter in bathrooms and were ordered to stay there until 3:45 p.m.
Aerial footage showed several rooftops torn from homes in Little Rock and nearby Benton.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency Friday evening and said there was “significant damage” in the central part of the state.
“We will spare no resources to assist with response and recovery efforts for Arkansans impacted,” she tweeted. She later said she had activated the National Guard.
Little Rock Mayor Scott tweeted that a temporary emergency shelter has been set up at Hall High School.
“Please stay off the roads and away from the affected areas to allow emergency responders to work,” he wrote.
Nearly 94,000 people in the state are without electricity, according to outage tracker PowerOutage.us.
Two more tornadoes were confirmed in Iowa, damaging hail fell in Illinois and wind-whipped grass fires blazed in Oklahoma as part of a massive storm system threatening a broad swath of the country that’s home to some 85 million people in the South and Midwest.
It was too early to estimate the Iowa twisters’ size or how much damage they had caused, however, Poweshiek County sheriff’s deputies said one touched down in an empty field and there were no reports of injuries.
“We have some reports of areas that have received damage but as far as severity, it’s too early to say yet,” Dylan Dodson, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Des Moines, told the Associated Press.
In Illinois, cars and homes had their windows smashed out from large chunks of hail in the area of Roanoke, northeast of Peoria.
In Belvidere, a city northwest of Chicago, an intense storm with 50 mph winds led to the death of at least one person and left 28 others injured after the roof of the Apollo Theater roof collapsed during a concert by death metal bands Morbid Angel, Revocation and Skeletal Remains, according to ABC 7.
Another 32,000 people were left without power in Oklahoma, where wind gusts up to 60 mph fueled fast-moving grass fires. People were urged to evacuate homes in far northeast Oklahoma City, and troopers shut down portions of Interstate 35 near the suburb of Edmond.
More outages were reported in Kansas, Missouri and Texas.
Just last week, at least 26 people were killed and dozens were injured in Mississippi and Alabama when a monster storm, preliminarily rated as an EF-4 tornado, descended on the region.
Rolling Fork — a predominantly black community of 2,000 residents located in one of the poorest counties in Mississippi — was among the hardest hit, as winds between 166 and 200 mph uprooted trees, flattened houses, sheared roofs off buildings and scattered mobile homes.
Northern Illinois meteorology professor and tornado expert Victor Gensini said Friday’s atmospheric setup is similar to the conditions that were present during Mississippi’s deadly storm.
Outside of Little Rock — a city of just over 200,000 people — the major population centers at high risk for storms starting Friday afternoon included Chicago; St. Louis; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
With Post wires
