By Bruce Shipkowski, Julie Walker and Rebecca Reynolds
The Associated Press
Violent tornadoes that ripped through parts of the U.S. proved deadly as well as destructive March 15 as whipping winds moved east into the Mississippi Valley and Deep South, with at least 17 people killed and scores of homes decimated.
Missouri recorded more fatalities than any other state as it withstood scattered twisters overnight that resulted in at least 11 deaths, authorities said. The State Highway Patrol also reported that multiple people were injured.
The deaths included a man who was killed after a tornado ripped apart his home.
“It was unrecognizable as a home. Just a debris field,” said Coroner Jim Akers of Butler County, describing the scene that confronted rescuers. “The floor was upside down. We were walking on walls.”
Tad Peters and his dad, Richard Peters, had pulled over to fuel up their pickup truck in Rolla, Missouri, late March 14 when they heard tornado sirens and saw other motorists flee the interstate to park.
“Whoa, is this coming? Oh, it’s here. It’s here,” Tad Peters can be heard saying on a video that quickly went viral. “Look at all that debris. Ohhh. My God, we are in a torn …”
His father then rolled up the truck window. The two were headed to Indiana for a weightlifting competition but decided to turn around and head back home to Norman, Oklahoma, about six hours away, where they encountered wildfires.
“That wasn’t the ideal situation I would have liked to have been in with a tornado going over us,” Tad Peters said in an interview March 15. “But what can you do?”
Officials in Arkansas said three people died in Independence County and 29 others were injured across eight counties as storms passed through the state.
“We have teams out surveying the damage from last night’s tornadoes and have first responders on the ground to assist,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on X.
She and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared states of emergency. Kemp said he was making the declaration in anticipation of severe weather moving in later Saturday.
On March 14, meanwhile, authorities said three people were killed in car crashes during a dust storm in Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle.
Extreme weather encompasses a zone of 100 million people
The deaths came as a massive storm system moving across the country unleashed winds that triggered deadly dust storms and fanned more than 100 wildfires.
Extreme weather conditions — including hurricane-force winds — were forecast to affect an area home to more than 100 million people. Winds gusting up to 80 mph (130 kph) were predicted from the Canadian border to Texas, threatening blizzard conditions in colder northern areas and wildfire risk in warmer, drier places to the south.
The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings for parts of far western Minnesota and far eastern South Dakota starting early March 15. Snow accumulations of 3 to 6 inches (7.6 to 15.2 centimeters) were expected, with up to a foot (30 centimeters) possible.
Winds gusting to 60 mph (97 kph) were expected to cause whiteout conditions.
Evacuations were ordered in some Oklahoma communities as more than 130 fires were reported across the state. Nearly 300 homes were damaged or destroyed. Gov. Kevin Stitt said at a March 15 news conference that some 266 square miles (689 square kilometers) had burned in his state.
The State Patrol said winds were so strong that they toppled several tractor-trailers.
“This is terrible out here,” said Charles Daniel, a truck driver hauling a 48-foot (14.6-meter) trailer along Interstate 40 in western Oklahoma. “There’s a lot of sand and dirt in the air. I’m not pushing it over 55 mph. I’m scared it will blow over if I do.”
Experts said it’s not unusual to see such weather extremes in March.
Tornadoes hit amid storm outbreak
The Storm Prediction Center said fast-moving storms could spawn twisters and hail as large as baseballs on March 15, but the greatest threat would come from straight-line winds near or exceeding hurricane force, with gusts of 100 mph (160 kph) possible.
Significant tornadoes, some of which could be long-track and violent, were expected the afternoon and evening of March 15. The regions at highest risk stretch from eastern Louisiana and Mississippi through Alabama, western Georgia and the Florida panhandle, the center said.
Apart from Oklahoma, wildfires elsewhere in the Southern Plains threatened to spread rapidly amid warm, dry weather and strong winds in Texas, Kansas, Missouri and New Mexico.
A blaze in Roberts County, Texas, northeast of Amarillo, quickly blew up from less than a square mile (about 2 square kilometers) to an estimated 32.8 square miles (85 square kilometers), the Texas A&M University Forest Service said on X. Crews stopped its advance by the evening of March 14.
About 60 miles (90 kilometers) to the south, another fire grew to about 3.9 square miles (10 square kilometers) before its advance was halted in the afternoon.
High winds also knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, according to the website poweroutage.us.
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Shipkowski reported from Toms River, New Jersey. Walker reported from New York. Reynolds contributed from Louisville, Kentucky.