Thousands recover from deadly tornadoes as more storms threaten the central US
LONDON Ky AP Thousands of people from Texas to Kentucky cleaned up Monday from severe weather that killed more than two dozen people and destroyed thousands of homes and buildings in four days as forecasters warned that more tornadoes and storms were realizable in the central U S In St Louis where executives estimated a tornado Friday damaged buildings and may cost well over billion the mayor warned that federal assistance could take weeks Kentucky has been hardest hit by the storms A devastating tornado late Friday into early Saturday damaged hundreds of homes tossed vehicles left plenty of homeless and killed at least people the majority of them in southeastern Laurel County In London Kentucky where the devastation was centered the small airport became a beehive of cleanup work after it took a direct hit from a tornado Bureaucrats were using it as a base to get water food diapers and other supplies out to the society We have things going on But we re managing it And we re going to get it all cleaned up disclosed London Mayor Randall Weddle Officers in Kansas and Texas also were evaluating damage from late Sunday storms Tornadoes were manageable in an area centered in eastern Oklahoma on Monday with the hazard of severe storms moving into Alabama Mississippi and Tennessee on Tuesday according to the National Weather Utility Kentucky cleans up The Kentucky storms that killed people were part of a weather system that caused seven deaths in Missouri and two in northern Virginia administration revealed Lonnie Nantz hid in a hallway with his wife two daughters and a grandson as the one-story brick home they bought near London in was destroyed around them They were trapped in rubble for about minutes in the midnight darkness before they were rescued unharmed I don t know why this happened I ve tried to live a good life all my life I ve still got the faith explained the -year-old Nantz who went to church as constantly on Sunday London city worker Ashley Taylor was back on the job Monday loading doughnuts to take to a hospital and dispatch center even though there was a tarp on her roof She was lucky the houses across her street were destroyed late Friday night She survived the storm with nine other people and three dogs in the crawl space of a neighbor s home We prayed like never before and just thankful for everything God did for us Taylor noted In surrounding Laurel County first responders mourned one of their own Fellow firefighters located the body of Laurel County Fire Major Leslie Leatherman on top of a woman he was shielding from the storm s fury as he answered calls during the worst of the storm The woman was yelling for help and they were in a field across from a destroyed subdivision The injured woman turned out to be Leatherman s wife and executives aren t sure if he knew who he was protecting in the darkness and chaos the fire department announced on social media A Kansas City is spared years after a tornado nearly wiped out the locality Forecasters on Sunday night issued a tornado urgency for Greensburg Kansas where people were killed and of the town was destroyed in May by a -mile -kilometer wide tornado with winds of mph kph The city was spared this time Power was out but residents were safe after the storm scare Greensburg agents posted on social media Tornadoes in Kansas carved a -mile -kilometer path through Stafford and Reno counties While damage was extensive no injuries or deaths were announced Hard-hit St Louis waits for FEMA St Louis Mayor Cara Spencer explained five people died were injured and more than homes were affected by an EF tornado with winds up to mph kph that slammed areas north and west of downtown Friday Spencer has estimated that damages will exceed billion Eight miles of pure destruction at times a mile wide Spencer stated at a Monday news conference We re talking about thousands of buildings thousands of families are being displaced The recovery work is just beginning The city issued a state of crisis and is awaiting a catastrophe declaration from the governor s office as a first step to getting federal assistance U S Sen Josh Hawley a Missouri Republican also expressed frustration over the federal response to a deadly March storm We cannot wait months I m not happy about the fact we re still waiting from all of that damage two months ago Hawley explained Acting Federal Crisis Management Agency Chief David Richardson disclosed last week he plans to shift responsibility for calamity recovery to states this year as part of an agencywide transformation and that FEMA would coordinate federal assistance when deemed necessary Spencer declared during a news conference Monday evening that exigency protocols put in place in were not followed possibly preventing sirens being activated to warn residents about the tornado When requested whether any sirens went off she mentioned We are still under evaluation What I can tell you is that the sirens were not deployed in a way that they should have been She declared it was not clear whose responsibility it was to let the locality know about the urgency but that the fire department will do so moving forward In Texas several tornadoes touched down west of Fort Worth on Sunday including an EF with peak winds of mph kph that caused damage in and around Gordon the weather provision reported Monday See more photos from the severe storms in the South and Midwest here Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia South Carolina Heather Hollingsworth in Mission Kansas Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville Maryland and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this statement Source
