Portions of West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania were under a new tornado watch issued on Sunday (Mar 16) by the National Weather Service, as the death toll from storms rose to at least 34 people in six states since Friday.
The storms that hit the South and the Midwest headed east on Sunday. Almost 300,000 consumers had no power in the affected areas on Sunday mid-afternoon, according to the website PowerOutage. Missouri reported the largest number of deaths, 12 fatalities spanning five counties, the state’s highway patrol posted on X.
Robbie Myers, the director of emergency management in Missouri’s Butler County, told reporters that more than 500 homes, a church and a grocery store in the county were destroyed. A mobile home park had been “totally destroyed,” he said.
“Everything around it here is really bad. The trailer park up the street had fatalities. So, I mean, we don’t have nothing compared to anything like that. I still have a home. They don’t,” Rick Brittingham, a Missouri resident, told Reuters from Butler County.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves posted on X that six deaths had been reported in the state, one in Covington County, two in Jefferson Davis County and three in Walthall County.
According to preliminary assessments, 29 people were injured statewide and 21 counties sustained storm damage, Reeves said.
Source: CNA
