Oklahoma City – Joyce Eels said she can live with the fact that a tornado took off most of the roof of her home – she’s just thankful to be alive.
“All the important things are OK,” she said Thursday. “My husband and family are OK. That’s the important stuff.” A powerful spring storm unleashed dozens of tornadoes as it moved through the Midwest on Wednesday and Thursday, including a twister in Oklahoma City that injured at least five people – two of them critically.
Tornadoes or high winds are believed to have killed at least four people in three states, including a woman who was flung into a tree by a twister that witnesses said was as wide as two football fields.
At least 65 tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska by late Wednesday, the National Weather Service said.
In Oklahoma, a 7-year-old girl was treated at a hospital for cuts, and two people were injured when a van was thrown from the Kilpatrick Turnpike into a concrete culvert, said Oklahoma City Deputy Fire Chief Tony Young.
Vance and Barbra Woodbury were killed Wednesday when a twister blew apart their home near the Panhandle community of Elmwood.
“We set off the tornado sirens, but they live too far out to hear them,” said Dixie Parker, Beaver County’s emergency management director. “The house was just flattened, the out buildings are gone. All that’s left is debris.” In Colorado, Rosemary Rosales, 28, died after being found critically injured in a tree after a huge tornado destroyed several homes and damaged dozens of others in Holly, a town of 1,000 people about 235 miles southeast of Denver near the Kansas line.
“All they heard was this big ugly noise, and they didn’t have no time to run,” said Victoria Rosales, the victim’s sister.
In the Texas Panhandle, Monte Ford, 53, was killed when he was thrown from his trailer after high winds caused it to roll. Storms moving across the northern part of the state brought up to 7 inches of rain in areas and led to numerous high-water rescues on flooded roads.
Tornadoes uprooted trees, overturned trucks and injured at least three people in the Panhandle. The region also got baseball-sized hail.
On Thursday, flooding plagued parts of the state, with traffic accidents and high-water rescues reported.
Oklahomans were bracing for more severe weather, as watches and warnings continued.
The same storm system dumped snow on Wyoming, causing highway pileups and closing large portions of three interstates. In the Wind River Mountains, 58 inches of snow had fallen by Thursday morning.
At least 800 homes in north-central Wyoming were without heat and electricity Thursday, down from about 2,200 the day before.
