LONE GROVE, Okla. — Rescuers sorted through bricks and shattered plywood Wednesday in search of more victims of a deadly tornado that blasted through a small Oklahoma town where many people in a trailer park had nowhere to escape the howling winds.
The death toll rose to nine Wednesday when a man who was injured and transferred to a Dallas hospital died, said Carter County Sheriff Ken Grace. Other victims were killed by flying debris, and one man died when a pickup fell on him.
There were also miraculous tales of survival: People taking shelter in a closet pulled a woman to safety after the tornado blew part of the roof off and threatened to carry her away. Another woman was found hurt but alive beneath an overturned mobile home.
Residents of Lone Grove, a town of 4,600 about 100 miles south of Oklahoma City, awoke Wednesday to find much of their community in ruins.
Shirley Mose was not at home when the tornado struck, but she returned to find the house destroyed and her pickup wrecked.
“I had a little Chihuahua that stayed in there,” Mose said. “We found her bed, but not her. I guess she’s gone.”
The Lone Grove twister had winds estimated at 170 mph and remained on the ground for more than an hour, the National Weather Service said in its preliminary assessment.
It was among a cluster of unusual February tornadoes that touched down Tuesday in Oklahoma. A half-dozen homes and several businesses were also damaged in Oklahoma City and suburban Edmond, but no serious injuries were reported there.
Bad weather continued Wednesday in the East, where authorities in West Virginia said one person died after a severe thunderstorm caused a school gym in Davy to collapse during a wake.
Officials had no other information on the woman who was killed but said there were no other injuries.
Severe thunderstorms blew through the state Wednesday, knocking out power to at least 153,000 customers.
Meanwhile, fierce winds and thunderstorms lashed Kentucky, causing new outages for at least 120,000 customers in a state still recovering from a late-January ice storm.
