Record Number Of Twisters In Midwest
Residents of Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and Kentucky continue to clean up after a weekend of tornadoes.
Storm damage is estimated at $325 million across the four states, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Acosta, and this wicked tornado season is not over yet. More than 384 twisters have been reported across the Midwest since the start of May — a record number.
Larry Joe Starks saw it coming and knew he had to run. A tornado that looked to him as broad as several football fields was blasting toward his cousin's farmhouse in southeast Iowa.
Just before the twister struck last Saturday, Starks and his friend Chris Derr, 15, jumped into a bathtub in the farmhouse for protection. Starks' cousin, Nathan Starks, sought shelter in a closet under the stairway.
All three began the ride of their lives.
The tornado yanked the two-story home up off its foundations near Argyle and slammed it into three large maple trees at least 25 feet away. The three teens emerged mostly unscathed — walking out to where the kitchen wall used to stand.
"It pretty much picked it up and slammed it down like a basketball," said Larry Joe Starks. "I'm one of those guys that ain't really scared of much, but I was kind of scared."
The tornado was part of a powerful storm system that also swept across central Illinois and parts of Missouri, Iowa and Kentucky, damaging homes, tearing down tree limbs and pelting the region with hail. Tornadoes were reported in more than a dozen counties.
"Right now we have approximately 365 people on the ground," FEMA chief Michael Brown said on the CBS News Early Show.
"These have been very powerful storms, the destruction has been pretty devastating," said Brown. "It's an ugly sight for folks who have to live through that."
One twister tore through South Pekin, Ill., 10 miles south of Peoria, destroying about 50 homes and causing extensive damage late Saturday, said Scott Gauvin, a spokesman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.
Twenty-seven people in the area were treated at hospitals, three with serious injuries.
In Missouri, as many as 40 buildings were damaged in Canton, Mo., including a fraternity house at Culver-Stockton College, after a tornado touched down Saturday evening. A dome atop a campus building was also damaged, and a mobile home park in the town of 2,500 was hit.
Storms with wind speeds of up to 150 mph hit parts of Central Kentucky early Sunday, damaging homes in Hardin, Hart and Mercer counties.
In northeastern Kentucky, at least 17 people were treated at hospitals and more than two dozen homes were damaged Saturday night after a tornado hit in Lewis and Mason counties near Maysville.
Other tornadoes were reported Saturday night in Illinois' Adams, Hancock, McDonough, Bureau, Henry, Brown, Mason, Fulton and Schuyler counties, damaging several homes and other buildings, National Weather Service and local emergency services officials said.
The storms stem from a volatile weather system that "has been hung up over the area the past two or three days," said Chris Geelhart, a weather service spokesman.
More than 300 tornadoes have been reported across the Midwest since the start of May, and at least 44 people have died in the storms. The worst of the storms appeared to have moved out of the region Sunday morning.
At the farmhouse near Argyle, the tornado packing winds ranging from 113 to 157 mph chopped up a shed, tore up a barn and moved at least one of their vehicles. It left more than a half-mile swath of debris, between 100 feet and 150 feet wide.
Nathan was the only one injured — he had a few scratches. Damage to the 100-year-old farmhouse could have been worse: The three trees on the property formed a good barrier, said Fire Chief Allan Case.
"If it wasn't for that, we don't know what would have happened to them boys," Case said. "The trees saved the boys' lives."