After deadly Oklahoma tornado, forecasters warn Midwest residents to brace for more weather
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Weather forecasters warned residents in several Midwest states on Tuesday to brace for dangerous storms, one day after a powerful twister roared through a small Oklahoma town, killing at least one person and destroying dozens of homes.
The National Weather Service said some tornadoes were spotted in southwestern Michigan on Tuesday, including one that blitzed parts of Portage. Photos posted on Facebook showed severe roof damage at a FedEx building and debris resting on delivery vehicles. It wasn’t immediately known if there were injuries.
A tornado watch was issued Tuesday afternoon for portions of northeast Indiana, southern Michigan and northwest Ohio with the possibility of tornadoes, large hail and wind gusts of up to 70 miles per hour. In southwestern Michigan, a tornado
Tuesday's storms were not expected to pose as intense a threat as those Monday had, said Roger Edwards, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.
The Storm Prediction Center cited 17 reports of tornadoes from Monday evening through early Tuesday in the central part of the United States. Eight of the twisters were in Oklahoma, two each in Kansas, South Dakota and Iowa, and one each in Nebraska, Missouri and Tennessee. The powerful storms come amid a wild swing in severe weather across the globe that includes some of the worst-ever flooding in Brazil and a brutal Asian heat wave.
A deadly tornado that touched down Monday night in Oklahoma ripped through the 1,000-person town of Barnsdall, about a 40-minute drive north of Tulsa. The National Weather Service there had warned Monday evening that “a large and life-threatening tornado” was headed toward Barnsdall, with wind gusts up to 70 mph (112 kph). It was the second tornado to hit the town in five weeks — a twister on April 1 with maximum wind speeds of 90 to 100 mph (145 to 161 kph) damaged homes and blew down trees and power poles in Barnsdall.
At least 30 to 40 homes in the Barnsdall area were damaged Monday night, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported, and a nursing home said it evacuated residents because a gas leak could not be turned off due to storm damage.
One person died in the town and one man is missing, Barnsdall Mayor Johnny Kelley said.
“There are several homes destroyed, completely leveled,” he said. “The toughest thing on me as the mayor is this is a small community. I know 75% to 80% of the people in this town.”
First responders rescued about 25 people, including children, from heavily damaged homes where buildings had collapsed on or around them, Kelley said. About a half dozen people suffered injuries, including a firefighter who was taken to a hospital with chest pains, he said.
Authorities launched a secondary search Tuesday morning to find one man who was still missing, Kelley said.
The Barnsdall Nursing Home posted online that all residents were accounted for with no injuries. They were being taken to other facilities. It asked families to bear with them “as it is chaos in town ... Please pray for us.”
Aerial videos from Barnsdall showed several well-built homes reduced to piles of rubble and others with roofs torn off and damaged walls still standing. The powerful twister tossed vehicles, downed power lines and stripped limbs and bark from trees across the town. A 160-acre wax manufacturing facility in the community also sustained heavy damage, Kelley said.
Gov. Kevin Stitt, who toured the damage on Tuesday, said the tornado was rated by weather researchers as an EF4, which is described as a violent tornado with wind speeds up to 200 mph. Stitt said he and legislative leaders have agreed to set aside $45 million in this year's budget to help storm-damaged communities.
“Oklahomans are resilient, and we're going to rebuild,” Stitt said.
Damage also was reported in Bartlesville, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast.
At the Hampton Inn in Bartlesville, several splintered 2x4s were driven into the south side of the building. Chunks of insulation, twisted metal and other debris was scattered over the hotel’s lawn, and vehicles in the parking lot were heavily damaged with smashed-out windows.
Matthew Macedo, 30, who was staying at the hotel, said he rushed with his coworker to the hotel lobby after hearing the tornado sirens and was then ushered into the hotel laundry room to wait out the storm.
“We lost power. ... That’s kind of the first indicator that things were real,” he said. “When the impact occurred, it was incredibly sudden.”
The weather soured earlier Monday, bringing gusty winds and rain. But after dark, tornadoes were spotted skirting northern Oklahoma. At one point in the evening, a storm in the small town of Covington had “produced tornadoes off and on for over an hour,” the National Weather Service said. Throughout the area, wind farm turbines spun rapidly in the wind and blinding rain.
The storms tore through Oklahoma as areas, including Sulphur and Holdenville, were still recovering from a tornado that killed four and left thousands without power late last month. Both the Plains and Midwest have been hammered by tornadoes this spring.
Oklahoma and Kansas had been under a high-risk weather warning Monday. The last time such a warning was issued was March 31, 2023, when a massive storm system tore through parts of the South and Midwest including Arkansas, Illinois and rural Indiana.
The entire week is looking stormy across the U.S. The eastern U.S. and the South are expected to get the brunt of the bad weather through the rest of the week, including in Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis and Cincinnati, cities where more than 21 million people live. It should be clear over the weekend.
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St. John reported from Detroit and Salter from O’Fallon, Missouri. Associated Press writers Rio Yamat in Las Vegas; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Colleen Slevin in Denver; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Sarah Brumfield in Silver Spring, Maryland; and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.
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Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.
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