9 dead after tornadoes, floods strike Oklahoma

Robin Webb and Michael Winter in USA Today: Severe flooding was the big issue Saturday as officials began surveying damage from tornadoes that hit the Oklahoma City metro area Friday, killing 9 and injuring more than 100 people.

The storm, the second fatal one to strike the region in 11 days, spawned several tornadoes, toppled cars and left commuters trapped on an interstate highway during Friday's evening rush. Law enforcement officers and Red Cross workers headed to hard-hit areas after dawn to assess the damage.

The storm also brought heavy rain and hail. Floodwaters topped 4 feet in Oklahoma City early Saturday and were expected to rise as flash flooding continued in parts of the state. Across east and central Oklahoma, repeated rounds of thunderstorms have produced between 4 to 7 inches of rain since midnight Saturday.

Some highways were closed because of downed power lines. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission reported more than 91,800 power outages related to the storms as of Saturday afternoon...

A May 21 image of the damage from a recent Oklahoma tornado, shot by Oklahoma National Guard, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Damage checks begin after deadly Midwest twisters

Sean Murphy in ABC News: Emergency officials set out Saturday morning to see how much damage a violent burst of thunderstorms and tornadoes caused as it swept across the Midwest overnight, killing at least five and injuring dozens.

The storm toppled cars and left commuters trapped on an interstate highway as it bore down during Friday's evening rush hour near Oklahoma City. The National Weather Service reported "several" tornadoes rolled in from the prairie, terrifying towns along their paths.

The storms brought another tense day for a region still reeling from the recent top-of-the-scale EF5 tornado that struck the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on May 20, killing 24 and decimating neighborhoods. Many said they took severe weather warnings issued during the day Friday seriously.

...Storm chasers with cameras in their cars transmitted video showing a number of funnels dropping from the supercell thunderstorm as it passed south of El Reno and into Oklahoma City just south of downtown. As the cell advanced, police urged motorists to leave I-40 and seek a safe place.

Violent weather also moved through the St. Louis area. Early aerial images of the storm's damage showed homes with porches ripped away, roofs torn off and piles of splintered wood scattered across the ground for blocks. Officials in St. Charles County also reported that local schools suffered some damage.

...Meteorologists had warned about particularly nasty weather Friday but said the storm's fury didn't match that of the tornado that struck Moore. The Friday storm, however, brought with it much more severe flooding. It dumped around 8 inches of rain on Oklahoma City in the span of a few hours and made the tornado difficult to spot for motorists trying to beat it home, said Bruce Thoren, a meteorologist with National Weather Service in Norman....

The Moore, Oklahoma tornado on May 20, 2013, shot by Ks0stm, der the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Oklahoma tornado spread destruction like a 'two-mile-wide lawnmower blade'

Gary Tuchman and Holly Yan in CNN: Even for a city toughened by disaster, Moore has never seen this kind of devastation. A massive, howling tornado pulverized a vast swath of the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, chewing up homes and businesses, and severely damaging a hospital and two elementary schools.

The storm carved a trail through the area as much as two miles wide and 22 miles long, officials said. The storm killed dozens, but amid the confusion of search and rescue efforts, a precise death toll was hard to come by. Hundreds of people were injured.

Firefighters, police, National Guard members and volunteers worked by flashlight overnight and into Tuesday morning, crawling across piles of debris in a determined search for survivors and victims. Air National Guard members brought in thermal imaging equipment to aid in the work.

Complicating their efforts: downed power lines, hissing natural gas pipes and so much debris blocking roads it was difficult to bring in heavy equipment to help.

Still, more than 100 people had been pulled from the rubble alive since Monday afternoon, the state Highway Patrol said. Early Tuesday, authorities asked news crews to move satellite trucks from the scene because the idling engines were making it difficult for rescuers to listen for the faint sounds of survivors beneath the rubble....

The Moore, Oklahoma tornado on May 20, 2013, shot by Ks0stm, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Oklahoma's plea for help falls on deaf ears as wildfires burn out of control

NBC News: Wildfires are burning out of control in Oklahoma, destroying homes and shutting down highways in a state that has suffered 18 straight days of 100-plus degree temperatures and persistent drought.

Emergency officials counted 12 different wildfires around the state, with at least 65 homes destroyed in parched areas north and south of Oklahoma City and south of Tulsa.

A state-wide burn ban was issued by Governor Mary Fallin Friday, according to a statement by Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management. Fallin, who earlier in the day invoked a statewide ban on outdoor burning after declaring a state of emergency for the state's 77 counties, told Reuters fire conditions may be worse on Saturday.  "The fire danger might be even higher," she said.

Oklahoma has contacted neighboring states for help, but they are contending with their own wildfire threats and no out-of-state help is on its way, Fallin said.  "There's fires in Arkansas. There's fires in Kansas and Texas. Everybody else is on high heat alert," she said.

The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning, saying there would be "critical fire weather conditions over much of northeast Oklahoma" Saturday....

Oklahoma sunrise obscured by smoke from the 1988 Yellowstone National Park forest fire. Shot by John K Rathgeber, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Drought grows more dire in US southwest, farms hit

Carey Gillam in Reuters: Conditions for crops and livestock are growing more dire by the day in the U.S. Southwest as drought continues to grip the region. Texas is a tinderbox, pastureland for hungry cattle is drying up, and prospects are deteriorating rapidly for wheat, corn, cotton and other crops.

"Conditions are just deplorable right now. One hundred percent of the state is currently in some form of drought," Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples told Reuters. The threat to cattle and crop production comes at a time when prices for both are soaring and potentially further adds to food costs for the United States and abroad.

Data released on Thursday morning by a consortium of national climate experts said a lack of rain had caused the drought toe expand over the last week to "extreme" and even "exceptional" levels in parts of Oklahoma and Texas.

…"The Southwest is pretty bad from southeast Arizona all the way over to Louisiana," said Mark Svoboda, climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center. "Texas is particularly bad. It is not a very good situation."…

A desert in West Texas, shot by Geoemrick, who has released it into the public domain

Oklahoma declared a federal disaster

John Pape in Disaster News Network: As Oklahoma struggled to dig out from under as much as 20 inches of snow dumped on the state by what many are calling the “Groundhog Day Storm,” President Barrack Obama approved Gov. Mary Fallin’s request to declare all of the state’s 77 counties as a federal disaster.

Although the declaration did not specify reimbursement to state and local governments of the response costs, the declaration is expected to be amended to include them.. Those expenses could include such things as personnel overtime costs as well as costs associated with operating shelters and clearing snow and ice covered roads.

Even recovery operations began, the state remained under a statewide declaration of emergency issued by Fallin on Monday.

Fallin spent most of the day in the State Emergency Operations Center, which was activated as the storm approached. Among the agencies working in the EOC were the Salvation Army, Oklahoma Military Department, Oklahoma State Department of Health, American Red Cross, Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Oklahoma Corporation Commission and Oklahoma Department of Transportation….

Deadly flash floods leave their mark

Jim Skillington in Disaster News Network: Flash flooding in Texas, Wyoming and Utah have turned deadly this week after several days of heavy rain. In Texas alone, nearly a dozen inches of rain has swamped the central portion of the state. In Comal County, emergency responders plucked nearly 90 people from their homes or trees after the Guadalupe River overflowed its banks. At least one person was killed in the flash flooding.

In addition to property damage Texas health officials were warning of water contamination when a sewage treatment plant was overrun by the flooding. New Braunfels Utilities shut down the plant but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said downstream residents should wear protective clothing when cleaning up their homes.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry warned residents to keep an eye on forecasts that predict additional rainfall as he activated emergency resources to deal with the flooding. "We will. . .continue to take action to protect Texans as needed," he said.

Rain wasn't the only hazard to hit the state Wednesday. The National Weather Service said a small tornado caused property damage in Jefferson County. As Texans coped with the heavy rain, emergency officials in Wyoming and Utah dealt with record flooding in those states as well….

The Trinity River flooding in Dallas, Texas (USA) on 8 July 1908