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Another round of powerful storms hitting Midwest, South
People still sorting through the wreckage of their homes after deadly weather hit over the weekend braced for another wave of strong storms, including tornadoes, that began rolling into parts of the Midwest and South beginning Tuesday evening. Officials warned residents to have shelter ready before going to sleep.
“This could be a night to just set up down in the basement to be safe,” said Tom Philip, a meteorologist in Davenport, Iowa.
Early Wednesday, the National Weather Service posted a tornado watch for parts of Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri until 9 a.m. local time.
The weather service began issuing tornado warnings Tuesday evening for Iowa and Illinois and said a confirmed twister was spotted southwest of Chicago near Bryant, Illinois. No damage was immediately reported.
A tornado was also reported near the town of Pleasantville, Iowa, the NWS said. Footage obtained by CBS News showed what appeared to be a twister spinning near Pleasantville.
Travis Kono/Storyful
There were no major power outages as of late Tuesday night, according to the utility tracking website PowerOutage.us.
The storms were expected to hammer some areas already hit by severe weather — and possibly dozens of tornadoes — just days ago that killed at least 33 people, meaning more misery for those whose homes were destroyed in Arkansas, Iowa and Illinois. Dangerous conditions also could stretch into parts of Missouri, southwestern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas. Farther south and west, fire danger remained high.
Ryan Bunker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma, predicted that Tuesday’s storm system could start as isolated supercells — with possible tornadoes, wind and hail — and “form into a line (of thunderstorms) and continue moving eastward.”
Earlier Tuesday, strong thunderstorms swept through the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois with winds up to 90 mph and baseball size hail. No injuries were reported but trees were downed and some businesses were damaged in Moline, Illinois.
The weather service and Illinois Emergency Management also said a tornado touched down Tuesday morning in the western Illinois community of Colona.
The Colona Police Department said the storm damaged a Shell Gas station and a building behind it. There were no injuries, the police department said, but two people were evacuated from the Shell station.
Colona Police Department
Northern Illinois, from Moline to Chicago, saw 75-80 mph winds and hail 2 to 3 inches in diameter on Tuesday afternoon, National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Baker said. The agency received reports of semi trucks tipped over by winds in Lee County, about 95 miles west of Chicago.
The tornado risk in the Upper Midwest was expected to be highest in the evening and late night Tuesday with storms targeting northern Illinois, eastern Iowa and southwest Wisconsin. Areas of southern Missouri and Arkansas were most at risk overnight.
In Keokuk County, Iowa, where 19 homes were destroyed and more were damaged Friday, emergency management official Marissa Reisen worried how those cleaning up the damage will cope if another storm hits.
“All of the people who have been impacted by the storms Friday night are doing all this work, to clean up, to gather their stuff, to pile up the debris,” Reisen said. “If a storm comes through and hits them again and throws all that hard work all over the place again, it will be so deflating to those people.”
Severe storms could produce strong tornadoes and large hail Wednesday across eastern Illinois and lower Michigan and in the Ohio Valley, including Indiana and Ohio, according to the Storm Prediction Center. The weather threat extends southwestward across parts of Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas.
The fierce storms that started Friday and continued into the weekend spawned deadly tornadoes in 11 states as the system plodded through Arkansas and onto the South, Midwest and Northeast.
The same conditions that fueled those storms — an area of low pressure combined with strong southerly winds — were setting up the severe weather Tuesday into early Wednesday, Bunker said.
Those conditions, which typically include dry air from the West going up over the Rockies and crashing into warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, are what make the U.S. so prone to tornadoes and other severe storms.
Dramatic temperature changes were expected, with Tuesday highs of 74 in Des Moines and 86 in Kansas City plunging overnight to 40 or colder overnight. In Little Rock, Arkansas, the high of 89 on Tuesday tied the record for the date set in 1880.
A blizzard warning was in effect for nearly all of North Dakota and most of South Dakota through at least Wednesday night. The National Weather Service predicted parts of South Dakota could see up to 16 inches of snow and wind gusts as high as 55 mph.
Dozens of schools in South Dakota closed Tuesday due to blizzard conditions. State executive branch offices were also closed in much of the state.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed off on $20 million Tuesday for emergency snow removal grants to localities. Officials reminded residents to check on neighbors and keep their homes stocked with food, water and medicine, have battery-powered radios in case of power outages and ensure gas meters and furnace vents are clear of snow.
In Minnesota, a winter storm warning was in effect in the north, while the southern part of the state expected thunderstorms that could include hail and strong winds. The expected weather led the Minnesota Twins to delay their Major League Baseball home opener from Thursday to Friday.
Fire danger persisted across portions of far western Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, northeastern New Mexico and far southeastern Colorado, with low humidity, dry vegetation and high wind gusts. Officials issued a fire warning for Custer County in western Oklahoma and urged some residents near the town of Weatherford to evacuate their homes because of a wildfire.
Three people were killed and several more seriously injured Wednesday when a bridge in Mississippi that was closed nearly a month ago collapsed while a work crew was prepping it for demolition, authorities said.
The bridge over the Strong River on State Route 149 in Simpson County, about 40 miles south of Jackson, had been closed to traffic since Sept. 18 as part of a bridge replacement project, the Mississippi Department of Transportation said in a news release.
Gov. Tate Reeves said in a post on social media late Wednesday that first responders from the county and “other state assets have been on the scene at the tragedy” where they’d confirmed at least three fatalities and multiple injuries.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a social media post late Wednesday that the Federal Highway Administration was “engaging state officials concerning” the “premature collapse during demolition of a bridge on State Route 149 in Mississippi.”
Simpson County Sheriff Paul Mullins had previously told WLBT-TV three people were killed and four critically injured.
Terry Tutor, the Simpson County coroner, told the New York Times that seven men were working on the bridge, using heavy machinery to tear it down, when it gave way and plummeted nearly 40 feet. He said three of the men died, and four were injured, the Times reported.
Mullins and Tutor didn’t immediately respond to messages Wednesday night from The Associated Press.
A call to the construction company, T.L. Wallace Construction, was unanswered Wednesday evening, and it was not possible to leave a message.
Department of Transportation spokesperson Anna Ehrgott said the agency “would share more information with the public as it becomes available.”
The department said one of its inspectors was at the work site when the bridge collapsed, and that person was unharmed.
The U.S. military conducted airstrikes on several Houthi weapons storage facilities in Yemen, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that U.S. Air Force B-2 stealth bombers were part of an operation to conduct “precision strikes” on five underground weapons storage locations in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.
“U.S. forces targeted several of the Houthis’ underground facilities housing various weapons components of types that the Houthis have used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region,” Austin said.
Lloyd said he authorized the strikes at the direction of President Biden.
This marks the latest in several such U.S. airstrikes targeting the Iran-backed Houthi militant group in retaliation for Houthi missile attacks on vessels in the Red Sea. Earlier this month, U.S. Central Command reported that U.S. aircraft and warships had struck 15 targets containing Houthi offensive military capabilities.
The U.S., U.K. and its allies have conducted several rounds of joint strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen dating back to mid-January.
Since November 2023, the Houthis have conducted dozens of missile and drone attacks on commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea in what it says is a response to the Israel-Hamas war. Those attacks caused major supply chain disruptions worldwide. The Houthis have sank two commercial vessels, and a missile attack in March on a Liberian-owned ship in the Gulf of Aden killed three people.
Houthi militants hijacked an Israeli-linked cargo ship last November, taking crew members hostage.
And in an escalation of events, the Houthis directly struck downtown Tel Aviv with a drone in July which killed one person and injured eight others. That attack prompted Israel to retaliate with its own airstrikes in Yemen.
In his statement Lloyd said that “for over a year” the Houthis “have recklessly and unlawfully attacked U.S. and international vessels transiting the Red Sea, the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden. The Houthis’ illegal attacks continue to disrupt the free flow of international commerce, threaten environmental catastrophe, and put innocent civilian lives and U.S. and partner forces’ lives at risk.”
In January, the Biden administration declared the Houthis to be a “specially designated global terrorist group.”
contributed to this report.
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