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Donations Help US Tornado Survivors Salvage Christmas

Donations Help US Tornado Survivors Salvage Christmas

Mayfield, Kentucky (AFP) - With the help of volunteers from around the country, families in western Kentucky will be able to celebrate Christmas on Saturday, two weeks after a string of tornadoes wrought a path of deadly destruction.

"We're just trying to provide Christmas," said Jimmy Finch, a volunteer from the neighboring state of Tennessee who came to Mayfield the day after the twisters hit.

"I haven't kept a total tally of how many people we have fed," Finch said. "We just encourage everybody to keep coming back."

Under a big yellow tent set up in a parking lot, the Scientology Volunteer Minister group also serves hot food and drink on a cold, windy Christmas Eve.

"It's a very difficult time for everybody," said Chad Adams, a member of the organization. "We're trying to make sure everybody eats."

He estimates that they have served over 30,000 meals since the disaster struck, and invites everyone around to keep coming back to have food and hot chocolate.

At other sites, organizations distributed toys to families who have lost everything, hoping to provide some joy amidst the tragedy.

In the nearby town of Benton, Shane Cornwell dressed up as Santa for his volunteer shift at a donation site, where boxes of toys and food lined the walls of the local Elk Lodge.

Outside, volunteers painted Christmas tree ornaments, while local families impacted by the storm collected toys from bins separated by age range.

At least 79 people lost their lives in the tornados, which passed over several states from the night of December 10 to the early morning of December 11.

"The scope and scale of this destruction is almost beyond belief," said President Joe Biden after touring the damage in Mayfield.

Epic Texas Rainfall Floods Parts Of Houston, Austin, Dallas; Thousands Displaced

Epic Texas Rainfall Floods Parts Of Houston, Austin, Dallas; Thousands Displaced

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Severe storms pummeled central and southeast Texas late Monday and early Tuesday, the latest devastation from a weekend storm system that spawned tornadoes and widespread flooding in major cities, killed at least eight people in the state and Oklahoma, and displaced thousands of residents.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared disasters in 37 counties where more than 1,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. Austin, Dallas, and Houston all reported flooding, with scores of water rescues and hundreds stranded at a Houston Rockets NBA playoff game.

And even more storms are expected in the central Texas area on Tuesday afternoon.

Many waterways overflowed their banks in the Bayou City and surrounding metro area, the country’s fifth-largest with a population of more than six million.

Interstates 10 and 45 — major arteries through town — both flooded, with some drivers abandoning their cars on the side of the highway. Houston’s Metro mass transit system suspended rail and bus service.

The Houston Independent School District, which serves 215,000 students, canceled classes. City officials activated an emergency operations center and delayed some employee start times, declaring a high-level emergency for the first time since Hurricane Ike in 2008.

The Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management reported hundreds of homes flooded on the west side of the county.

“My people are all stuck in the water. We’re looking at multiple homes flooded already,” said Michael Walter, public information officer at the emergency operations center. “Southwest Houston and northwest Houston got hit really hard. We have a police helicopter up right now in the west because there was extensive flooding and the bayous are out of their banks and flooding neighborhoods.”

Workers tweeted about being stranded at their stores overnight, including the massive Galleria Mall.

Hundreds of Rockets fans also tweeted their frustration at being stranded at Toyota Center after Monday night’s game, where flood warnings were posted on the Jumbotron and an announcer asked those in attendance not to leave because of the storms.

Many stayed until early morning, when breakfast was served by staff, and departed after the flood warning was lifted, assistant general manager Amanda “Mandy” Strudler-Mann said on the center’s Facebook page.

Nick Mercadante, 33, was trapped by the storms at Bellerive Ice Center in the Sharpstown area with about 50 others who had gathered for a hockey league game.

“For a while it was flowing like a river down to the highway, so even the people in trucks didn’t bother leaving because there was nowhere to go,” he said.

They watched reports on a rink television of others stranded at the Rockets game and elsewhere until about 2 a.m., when the cable went out.

At about 6:30 a.m., Mercadante ventured out in his VW GTI, taking first one highway, then another to avoid closures and flooding as he returned to his home in the nearby West University area. It took him about an hour and a half.

“It’s pretty rough,” he said, “There’s certain cross streets that are totally flooded.”

He saw cars flooded, some abandoned under overpasses.

At one point, he drove onto the sidewalk to avoid a flooded street and spotted a man standing in an adjacent yard, shocked by the damage.

“He was just standing outside on the lawn looking confused, taking it all in. His street was definitely flooded,” Mercadante said, “I gave him a wave.”

Although the rains had stopped in Houston by 7 a.m., more storms were expected later in the day. Mercadante planned to stay in.

“It looks OK now, it looks sunny, but you never know the way the weather changes. Hopefully, the worst is past,” he said.

At least four storm-related deaths have been reported in Texas in the latest round of storms: a man whose body was pulled from the Blanco River; a 14-year-old found with his dog in a Dallas-area storm drain; a South Texas high school senior who died Saturday after her car was caught in high water; and a Central Texas man whose mobile home was destroyed by a reported tornado.

The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management also reported four storm-related fatalities during the holiday weekend.

Before sunrise Tuesday, emergency crews used helicopters and boats to help residents evacuate their flooded homes in Webberville, Texas, about 15 miles east of Austin.

Authorities there were also still searching for a dozen people reported missing after a flooded river swept their vacation home off its foundation and down the nearby Blanco River over the weekend.

Authorities just across the border in Mexico were also searching for victims in Ciudad Acuna, where a tornado Monday killed 13 people and left at least five missing. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto was expected to travel to Acuna with other government officials.

Photo: usacetulsa via Flickr

Volatile, Unpredictable, Rare Storm Killed Two

Volatile, Unpredictable, Rare Storm Killed Two

By Steve Lord, Janelle Walker, and Matthew Walberg, Chicago Tribune (TNS)

CHICAGO — The day after tornadoes scoured parts of seven counties in north central Illinois, killing two women in a small town that was destroyed, National Weather Service meteorologists sought to explain exactly what happened.

What they found underscored the frightening volatility and unpredictability of such violent storms.

The most powerful tornado that swept through the area Thursday night packed winds of 180 to 200 mph, weather service meteorologists Mike Bardou and Gino Izzi said at a briefing Friday afternoon in Rochelle, Ill. The tornado measured a half-mile wide and traveled 15 to 20 miles on the ground, which Izzi said was “very unusual.”

Such a tornado can be expected to occur only every six years in Illinois, the meteorologists said. But the EF4 tornado — one notch below the most severe classification under the Enhanced Fujita scale — that struck around dusk Thursday was of the same severity as the one that devastated the central Illinois community of Washington on Nov. 17, 2013.

The weather service will continue to analyze computer data from radar and conduct aerial surveys of the storm’s path to glean more details about what happened.

For now, Bardou and Izzi said, radar readings and reliable accounts from storm chasers indicate the initial tornado, which developed about 90 miles west of Chicago, west of the town of Ashton, spun into a pair of twisters after the storm ripped through Rochelle and nearly wiped out the small community of Fairdale.

The more powerful twister moved northeast into Boone and McHenry counties. Different meteorological conditions developed that apparently created a funnel cloud, which bounced along the ground in Boone County, Bardou said.

The smaller, “satellite” tornado traveled on a parallel path farther northwest, starting near Rockford in Winnebago County and streaking through northwest Boone and McHenry Counties, the weather service said.

The most severe damage was in tiny Fairdale, where two neighbors, Geraldine Schultz, 67, and Jacklyn K. Klosa, 69, were killed. Virtually every structure in the DeKalb County town of about 150 people was damaged substantially. Many were completely destroyed.

An estimated 49 structures were damaged in the Rochelle area, nearly 20 of which were destroyed, the Illinois State Police reported. A total of 11 people suffered injuries serious enough to be taken to area hospitals, the agency said.

While it didn’t appear there were more victims, searchers continued to work Friday night with cadaver dogs because not all residents had been accounted for, the state police said.

“Numerous vehicles” were blown off Interstates 39 and 88, the state police said.

One of the buildings destroyed by the storm was Grubsteakers restaurant, on the outskirts of Rochelle at the intersection of Illinois Routes 251 and 64.

Tod Carlock had stopped in the restaurant’s parking lot about 5 p.m. Thursday to get a tire changed on his semitractor after a blowout on I-39.

Two hours later, he was one of a dozen people trapped in the restaurant’s basement, where they had taken shelter from the storm.

“I had the fear — it was way too close,” Carlock said of the tornado. “So I backed up the truck up 50 or 60 yards and ran inside as fast as I could.” The restaurant owner led Carlock and others through the restaurant and back outside to the cellar doors.

“Not more than he shut the doors and it hit,” Carlock said.

They could hear the tornado hit the building above them. “We could hear it being torn apart.” It lasted only a few moments, he said. “Here and gone.”

They waited a few more minutes for the storm to completely pass before some of those in the cellar tried to open the doors. They could see light outside, but the debris was blocking their way.

Someone called 911, and the dispatcher told them to wait, that help was on the way.

Nearly two hours later, they were rescued, Carlock said. Those with cellphones used the flashlight apps for light, he added.

Help in a different form came to Fairdale from Washington, the Peoria suburb that experienced similar devastation less than two years ago. In the weeks and months after the Washington tornado, which killed one resident and destroyed nearly 750 homes, people from all over the country donated to the town’s recovery.

Washington resident Jewel Ward wanted to pass it on.

Ward, who grew up near Fairdale and sought refuge there for a few days after the Washington twister, started an online fundraiser Thursday night to help Fairdale residents. Her goal with the Fairdale Tornado Relief fund on youcaring.com was $5,000. By 7:15 p.m Friday, the fund totaled more than $6,000.

“All of us remember what it was like in those first days of recovery,” Ward wrote on the fund site, “and how important it is to get needed funds to those in need quickly.”

Ward said she is working with the Kirkland Lions Club, near Fairdale, to receive and distribute funds to “those in need due to tornado related costs,” she wrote.

While Ward’s effort was garnering contributions, Gov. Bruce Rauner visited the tornado-ravaged region, declaring DeKalb and Ogle counties state disaster areas. Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk also toured the area.

“Our hearts and thoughts go out to those impacted by yesterday’s storms,” Rauner said at the Flagg Center Community Church of God in Flagg, another small town about 265 miles south of Fairdale. “The state will do everything it can to help these families and communities recover and heal, while providing response resources.”

(Matthew Walberg is a Tribune reporter, Steve Lord is a reporter with the Aurora Beacon-News, Janelle Walker is a freelance reporter)

(Tribune reporters Juan Perez Jr., Genevieve Bookwalter, Gregory Pratt, Quinn Ford, Peter Nickeas and Tony Briscoe contributed, as did Erika Wurst of the Aurora Beacon-News and freelancer Quan Truong)

(c)2015 Chicago Tribune, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo: Homes in the town of Fairdale, Ill. are severely damaged Friday, April 10, 2015 after a tornado ripped through north central Illinois the previous night. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

At Least One Killed, 26 Hurt In Nebraska Tornadoes

At Least One Killed, 26 Hurt In Nebraska Tornadoes

By Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times

At least one person was killed and 26 others were injured when tornadoes struck parts of Nebraska on Monday, according to local hospitals.

Images televised by CNN showed two tornadoes moving through a predominantly rural area in Stanton County.

A large tornado had caused “significant damage” near Stanton, the Weather Channel reported on its Twitter feed. The National Weather Service reported that several homes had been destroyed in Pilger.

“We saw a couple people get pulled out of their house, pretty covered in blood, looked like the guy broke his arm,” resident Bryan Mendlik said. “Anybody that was on Main Street, if they weren’t in their basement, they would be hurt.”

Faith Regional Health Services in Norfolk said it had received 16 patients in critical condition, with four more patients on the way. It also reported the one fatality.

Providence Medical Center in Wayne said it had two patients with cuts, with a third patient on the way.

Pender Community Hospital said it had three patients in noncritical condition.

Much of eastern Nebraska and parts of Iowa were under a tornado watch. The entire region was under a “moderate” risk of severe storms through the rest of the day, the Storm Prediction Center reported.

AFP Photo/Tasos Katopodis