9 Dead As Storm Rips Through Midwest

DEVELOPING: A
powerful storm system that produced multiple reports of tornadoes
struck the Midwest early Wednesday, killing at least nine people in
Illinois and Missouri.


Lt. Tracy Felty of the Saline County
Sherriff's Office said six people were reported dead in the small town
of Harrisburg, Ill., one of the areas hardest hit by the early morning
storm. The apparent twister tore through the area around 5 a.m., causing
widespread damage.
In Missouri, three people were killed -- one
in a trailer park in the town of Buffalo, Fox News has learned. At
least three people were critically injured in the small eastern Kansas
town of Harveyville.


The tornadoes were spawned by a powerful
storm system that blew down from the Rockies on Tuesday and was headed
across the Ohio and Tennessee river valleys toward the Mid-Atlantic
region.


Corey Mead, lead forecaster at the U.S.
Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said a broad cold front was
slamming into warm, humid air over much of the eastern half of the
nation.


From Tuesday night into Wednesday morning,
at least 16 tornado sightings were reported from Nebraska and Kansas
across southern Missouri to Illinois and Kentucky, according to the
storm center, an arm of the National Weather Service.


Jennifer Verhaalen, a long-term resident at
the Hillbilly Inn Motel in downtown Branson, said she saw a white funnel
cloud followed by a wall of rain as the storm closed in on the town
around 1 a.m.


She said she retreated to a back bedroom
with her husband as the storm slammed into two other hotel buildings
tearing the roof off one.


Across the road, a strip mall lay in
tatters, its roof missing and several walls collapsed. As the sun rose
Wednesday, business owners picked through the remains of their stores.


Keith and Glenna Bartley, tourists from
Kingsport, Tenn., said staff at the Grand Victorian Hotel where they
were staying ushered them to the basement around 1:30 a.m.


Branson has long been a tourist destination
for visitors attracted to the beauty of the surrounding Ozarks. But the
city rose to prominence in the 1990s because of its theater district,
which drew country music stars and other music celebrities including the
Osmond twins and Andy Williams. It is about 110 miles southeast of
Joplin, which was devastated by a monstrous twister last May that killed
161 people.


Farther north, rescue crews waited for
sunrise to begin searching a trailer park south of Buffalo where at
least one person was killed after an apparent twister slammed the area.


Lt. Dana Eagan of the Dallas County
Sheriff's Office said 13 people at the park were hurt and the entire
town was without power. Buffalo is about 35 miles north of Springfield.


Tornado season normally starts in March, but
it isn't unusual to see severe storms earlier in the year. Forecasters
can seldom assess how serious a season will be because twisters are so
unpredictable. This year, two people were killed by separate tornadoes
in Alabama in January, and preliminary reports have showed 95 tornadoes
struck that month.


In neighboring Kansas, the National Weather
Service reported brief tornado touchdowns southwest of Hutchinson, and
Gov. Sam Brownback declared a state of emergency after an apparent
tornado struck Harveyville.


The declaration covered Wabaunsee County,
southwest of Topeka. The governor's office said one person was
critically injured, several homes and a church were damaged and trees
and power lines were down.


The system also skirted northern Arkansas,
bringing gusts of up to 60 mph in the northwest. A wall cloud, which
often produces twisters, was reported in Cherokee Village, where trees
were scattered along roads, the weather service said. Residents of Clay
County in northeastern Arkansas reported hail the size of golf balls,
while half dollar-sized hail was reported in Mountain Home.


In northern Oklahoma, gusts of up to 80 mph flipped trailers and damaged homes near Cherokee.


Tornado warnings and watches were posted for most of Kentucky and a large portion of Kentucky.
Source