USA Today via the AP: A violent storm system unleashed dozens of tornadoes across the Midwest and Plains, leaving five people dead and at least 29 injured in Oklahoma Sunday morning. As the weather gripped the region, twisters or high winds damaged a hospital, homes and cut power to hundreds of thousands, and forecasters warned more storms were possible before the day was over.Oklahoma emergency officials said five people died after a tornado touched down at 12:18 a.m. Sunday in and around the northwest Oklahoma town of Woodward, about 140 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. The brunt of the damage was reported on the west side of the town of about 12,000 and its outskirts. Search teams were scouring rubble for trapped and injured as the sun came up.
"They're still going door to door and in some cases there are piles of rubble and they are having to sift through the rubble," said Michelann Ooten, an Oklahoma emergency management official.
The storms were part of an exceptionally strong system that the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., which specializes in tornado forecasting, had warned about for days. The center took the unusual step of warning people more than 24 hours in advance of a possible "high-end, life-threatening event." Forecasters had worried the storms would hit overnight, when people are less likely to hear warning sirens and pay attention to weather reports...
A tornado shot from NOAA's archive
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