ST.LOUIS TORNADO — Heavy storms, including what could have been a tornado, hit St. Louis on Friday afternoon and killed at least five people. Authorities were checking building to building for people who were trapped or hurt.
The storm ripped off roofs, blew out windows, and tore bricks off of walls. It also pulled down trees and power lines. Mayor Cara Spencer said that the power went out in more than 5,000 homes and that about 100,000 people were still without power on Friday night.
Spencer said, “This is really, really terrible.” She also said that the city was in the process of announcing an emergency and that schools were closed overnight on Friday in the areas that had the most damage.
It wasn’t clear right away how many people were hurt. Twenty to thirty people with storm-related injuries were taken to Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Some were in serious condition, but most were expected to be released by Friday night, according to Laura High, a spokeswoman for the hospital.
She said that 15 people went to St. Louis Children’s Hospital and that two of them were going to stay until the weekend.
Radar from the National Weather Service showed that a tornado hit Clayton, Missouri, near St. Louis, between 2:30 and 2:50 p.m. The storm hit close to Forest Park, which is home to the Saint Louis Zoo and was the site of the 1904 Olympics and World’s Fair.
According to William Pollihan, Battalion Chief of the St. Louis Fire Department, one person died and two others were saved when part of the Centennial Christian Church building fell apart.
Pat Penelton, Stacy Clark’s wife’s mother, died in the church, he said. He said she was a busy volunteer at church who did many things, such as singing in the choir.
Centennial Christian asked people to pray for its church on Facebook.
The lights went out right after Jeffrey Simmons Sr., who lives across the street from the church, heard a message on his phone.
“The next thing you know, there’s a lot of noise and wind,” he said. His brother and he went down to the basement. He found out later that it was even worse than he thought: “Everything was torn up.”
Traffic was backed up on Friday afternoon because of downed trees and stoplights, and officials asked people to stay home if they could.
After the storm, the top stories of the brick building that housed the Harlem Tap Room were torn down, leaving piles of bricks outside. There were about 20 people inside, but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said they were all huddled in the back of the house and no one was hurt.
MU-St. Louis student John Randle, 19, said that he and his girlfriend were at the St. Louis Art Museum when they were pushed into the basement with about 150 other people.
People inside could hear tree branches and hail hitting the windows, and he climbed up a set of stairs to the front door for a short time.
“You could see people running, leaves flying by, and doors flying open,” he said. “A lot of people were caught outside.”
A spokeswoman for the Saint Louis Zoo, Christy Childs, said in a text message that the zoo would be closed on Saturday because of damage from downed trees and other things. Childs said that all the animals were safe and that no people, animals, or staff had been seriously hurt.
Marshall Pfahler, a scientist with the National Weather Service, said, “We can’t say for sure if it was a tornado or not, but it really was.”
The storms were part of a severe weather system that caused tornadoes in Wisconsin, downed trees, and left thousands of people in the Great Lakes region without power. In Texas, the heat wave was very bad.
Appalachia and the Midwest are in danger.
Storms with possible tornadoes, hail, and hurricane-force winds could make it hard to get around in parts of Appalachia and the Midwest through Friday night, according to weather forecasts.
There was a rare tornado emergency warning from the weather service around Marion, Ill., on Friday night. They said that a tornado had been confirmed and was dangerous to life. Reports of accidents and damage weren’t known right away.
Around the Chicago area on Friday night, a dust storm warning was sent out. The weather service said there was a wall of dust 100 miles long, stretching from southwest Chicago to northern Indiana. This made it very hard to see.
People in parts of Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and Ohio, as well as southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Kentucky, should get ready for strong storms that could bring baseball-sized hail.
The Storm Prediction Centre of the National Weather Service said that “very large hail” and “strong, potentially long-track tornadoes” were likely. Damage-causing winds of more than 75 mph will become more likely this evening as the storms get bigger.
Before the storm that was supposed to happen Friday night, Appalachian Power, which serves 1 million customers in West Virginia, Virginia, and Tennessee, asked 1,700 extra workers from neighbouring utilities to help its own crews from areas that wouldn’t be touched by the storm restore service.
A meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Nashville named Faith Borden said on Friday that people in middle Tennessee could expect “all types of severe weather.” There are 70 mph winds. We’re talking really big hail—up to 3 inches, which is big hail for us.
A heat wave hits Texas.
It was very hot in Texas. With temperatures soaring from 95 F (35 C) to 105 F (40.5 C), a heat warning was sent out for San Antonio and Austin. From Virginia to Florida in the south, parts of the East Coast were hot in the 90s (32–37 C).
Friday, the National Weather Service Office for Austin/San Antonio said that the heat that was coming in over the weekend would make it feel hotter.
Meteorologist Jason Runyen said, “There are concerns of heat exhaustion for people who aren’t taking the right precautions when they’re outside.” He told those who might be affected to drink water and take breaks.
Overnight Thursday, storms with loud thunder, amazing lightning shows, and strong winds hit parts of Wisconsin, Illinois, northern Indiana, and Michigan. Thousands of homes lost power and many trees were down.
Central Wisconsin was hit by several tornadoes on Thursday. A National Weather Service analyst in Green Bay named Timm Uhlmann said that none of the twisters had been rated as of Thursday.
Uhlmann said, “We’re still getting reports.” “We are still getting pictures and video to figure out how bad some of the damage is.” The damage we have is pretty broad. A lot of big hail fell. One story said that hail the size of softballs hit Eau Claire.
There were no reports of damage right away.
Steven Freitag, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in White Lake Township, northwest of Detroit, said that damage was also being looked at in Michigan on Friday to see if any storms had hit.
Temperatures in the middle 80s Fahrenheit (26–29 C) from Illinois to Michigan sparked the storms, and a cold front that pushed through set them off, Freitag said.
By Friday night, power was coming back on for most Michigan users, but nearly 190,000 were still without it. There were also reports of power outages into Friday night in more than six other states, such as Missouri and Indiana.
Bad weather in Chicago pushed back a Beyoncé show at Soldier Field on Thursday by about two hours.