Post date: May 20, 2013 12:14:2 PM
Powerful tornadoes strike in Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois.
WICHITA, KANSAS, UNITED STATES (MAY 19, 2013) (NBC) - A massive storm front swept north through the central United States on Sunday (May 19), hammering the region with fist-sized hail, blinding rain and tornadoes, including a half-mile wide twister that struck near Oklahoma City. News reports said at least one person had died.
By 9:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (0200GMT), more than two dozen tornadoes had been spotted in parts of Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and local news reports. Hail stones, some as large as baseballs, were reported fromGeorgia to Minnesota, the NOAA said.Fox News reported that one person was killed in Shawnee, Oklahoma, east of Oklahoma City.
Police in Shawnee could not immediately be reached to confirm the report.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin declared 16 counties of the state disaster areas, according to Jerry Lojka, a spokesman for the state emergency management department.
By late Sunday, power outages were being reported in several Oklahoma counties, according to the Tulsa World newspaper.
Meteorologists had been warning for days that a powerful front was expected to blast through the region, spawning potentially destructive twisters. The extreme weather is expected to continue into Monday, National Weather Service advisories said.
An extreme weather system stretching from north Texas to Minnesota had been building for hours on Sunday when the day's first tornado touched down near Wichita, Kansas at 3:45 pm Central Standard time(2045GMT), according to a weather service alert.
Chuck Walton described the moment the tornado ripped through his area.
"No sooner than we got in the basement, we saw heavy wind and heavy rain and after it subsided we saw that we had sustained quite a bit of damage," Walton said.
Just after 6 p.m.,(2300GMT) the Norman, Oklahoma office posted a Twitter alert on a tornado about to strike Pink, a town on the edge of Oklahoma City.
"Large tornado west of Pink!" the post read. "Take cover RIGHT NOW in Pink! DO NOT WAIT!"
The storm prompted an unusually blunt warning from the central region of the National Weather Service, which covers 14 states.
"You could be killed if not underground or in a tornado shelter," it said. "Complete destruction of neighborhoods, businesses and vehicles will occur. Flying debris will be deadly to people and animals."