{"id":105352,"date":"2024-04-28T18:08:56","date_gmt":"2024-04-28T18:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/tornados-leave-trail-of-destruction-as-4-injured-hundreds-of-homes-damaged\/"},"modified":"2024-04-28T18:08:56","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T18:08:56","slug":"tornados-leave-trail-of-destruction-as-4-injured-hundreds-of-homes-damaged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/tornados-leave-trail-of-destruction-as-4-injured-hundreds-of-homes-damaged\/","title":{"rendered":"Tornados leave trail of destruction as 4 injured, hundreds of homes damaged"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ABC News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Severe weather left a trail of destruction in the Heartland on Friday with 83 reports of tornadoes across five states.<\/p>\n

The multi-day tornado outbreak continued Saturday, with powerful storms expected from Texas to the Great Lakes.<\/p>\n

Emergency officials in Hughes County, Oklahoma, confirmed one death due to storms in Holdenville.<\/p>\n

There is a tornado watch in effect for parts of six states, from Texas to Iowa into the late evening. This watch will likely expand east slightly as the day wears on.<\/p>\n

A moderate risk — level 4 out of 5 — is in the outlook for parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri Saturday, with storms expected to flare up again in the afternoon and evening across a huge area of the country. There is a chance for strong long-track tornadoes as well as very large hail up to 3 inches in diameter and thunderstorm winds up to 80 mph.<\/p>\n

In addition to dozens of tornado reports, Friday saw 33 damaging wind reports and 60 large hail reports.<\/p>\n

In Iowa, four people were injured Friday and approximately 120 structures were damaged after severe weather hit Pottawattamie County, officials in that county said.<\/p>\n

The city of Minden was the hardest hit area in Friday’s storms, according to the county. Gas and power have been disrupted, and a 10 p.m. curfew has been issued until further notice.<\/p>\n

Gov. Kim Reynolds, Pottawattamie County, and the City of Minden have all declared a state of emergency.<\/p>\n

Severe damage was also reported across eastern Nebraska, including Douglas County, where hundreds of homes were damaged in the Omaha area Friday.<\/p>\n

Preliminary information suggests that two “strong, rare tornadoes” touched down in Douglas County, Chris Franks with the National Weather Service said during a press briefing on Saturday. The National Weather Service found evidence of EF-2 and EF-3 tornado damage there following Friday’s storms, Franks said.<\/p>\n

No fatalities have been reported so far following the storms, officials said.<\/p>\n

“For that big of a storm, to have the property damage that was so extensive, without the loss of life,” Douglas County Emergency Management Paul Johnson said at the press briefing. “It’s a tremendous attribute to the city of Omaha.”<\/p>\n

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen urged people to continue to stay safe as the storm threat continues into Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

There have been seven tornado reports so far Saturday. One tornado emergency was issued for Knox City, Texas, where a large and damaging tornado was reported near the town. Baseball-sized hail was also reported with this tornadic storm.<\/p>\n

A tornado was confirmed Saturday near the intersection of Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri. The confirmed tornado was eight miles north of Robinson, Kansas.<\/p>\n

All modes of severe weather are likely on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Damaging winds, huge hail, and long-track tornadoes are all in the cards, especially in Kansas, Oklahoma and northeast Texas. Overall, there is a severe weather threat stretching across the central U.S. from Canada to Mexico.<\/p>\n

The threat for these dangerous storms continues into the overnight hours.<\/p>\n

In addition to the thunderstorm threat, there is also a flash flood risk with this major storm system.<\/p>\n

A flood watch is in effect for eight states from Texas to Iowa until Monday afternoon. This is because heavy downpours may dump significant rainfall in a short time and lead to dangerous flash flooding.<\/p>\n

More than 2 to 5 inches of rain may be falling in a short period of time, prompting the Weather Prediction Center to issue a Moderate Risk for Excessive Rainfall from Texas to Missouri.<\/p>\n

“Confidence continues to be high in a major flash flood event unfolding for portions of east-central Oklahoma with higher end rainfall totals Saturday beginning late this evening into Saturday night,” the Weather Prediction Center said.<\/p>\n

A “high risk” for excessive rainfall is the greatest level threat possible. One-third of all flood-related fatalities occur in high-risk areas. It is a rare and serious life-threatening flood event forecast that leads to a high-risk issuance.<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service will be conducting damage surveys this weekend to determine the number of confirmed tornadoes, as well as the intensity ratings and other details.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the threat is reduced, but still there is a chance for damaging wind, large hail and a few tornadoes from Austin, Texas, to Davenport, Iowa, and includes Shreveport, Louisiana; Little Rock, Arkansas; Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri.<\/p>\n

ABC News’ Victoria Arancio contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ABC News Severe weather left a trail of destruction in the Heartland on Friday with 83 reports of tornadoes across five states. The multi-day tornado outbreak continued Saturday, with powerful storms expected from Texas to the Great Lakes. Emergency officials in Hughes County, Oklahoma, confirmed one death due to stormsRead More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,31,2],"tags":[273,271,276,274,270,123,275,133,124,272,102,103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}