Fallen trees, broken glass and downed power lines litter the road
Washington:
A devastating storm hit three central U.S. states late Thursday, triggering massive tornadoes and claiming at least three lives, officials said Friday.
Powerful storms ripped through the neighboring states of Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.
“We are aware of three fatalities,” Sheriff Randall Dodds of Logan County in west-central Ohio told a CBS affiliate.
“The damage is so severe that we have to get heavy equipment to these areas to be able to move these materials to where the houses have collapsed and see if anyone is injured,” he said, adding, “It’s going to take a long time.”
The National Weather Service (NWS) said more than 13 million people in the central United States were under tornado watches Thursday as the storm approached.
The storm swept across the Ohio Valley, spawning apparent tornadoes in many areas, including a “very dangerous half-mile wide tornado” in Ohio, the National Weather Service said.
A tornado struck the rural town of Indian Lake in the western part of the state.
“This is a pure disaster. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” Amber Fagan, president of the Indian Lake Chamber of Commerce, told Columbus ABC.
“Downtown, it’s bad. Very bad.”
The road was littered with downed trees, broken glass and downed power lines.
Further east, nearly 5,000 homes were without power in Delaware County, Ohio.
“Someone else’s roof is in my kitchen,” Katie Sprinkle told The Columbus Dispatch. She said her children wore bicycle helmets during the storm and her husband made them take shelter under an overturned canoe.
“Pray out loud, Mom,” her nine-year-old daughter urged her.
Indiana State Police initially told US media that a suspected tornado struck a mobile home park in Winchester, Indiana, killing three people.
But at a press conference overnight they said they were “unaware” of any deaths.
However, authorities said Friday that at least 38 people were injured in Randolph and Delaware counties in Indiana, including “three with potentially serious injuries.” They said at least 22 buildings were believed to have been destroyed.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on social media that a tornado passed through the cities of Gallatin and Trimble in the state, but no one was killed.
Tornadoes, impressive and unpredictable weather phenomena, are relatively common in the United States, especially in the central and southern regions of the country.
It’s not uncommon for tornado outbreaks to occur in March, but their peak usually comes in April or May.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
