Tornado Outbreak Leaves 4 Dead
"I just heard something like a train, a huge vacuum cleaner-type train suction sound and I just sat down and figured it was the last day of my life," Holly, Colo., resident Stella Bates told CBS News.
A powerful spring storm unleashed dozens of tornadoes over the past two days in the central Plains states, reports CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan.
A tornado near Oklahoma City left two people in critical condition, damaged a dozen homes, knocked down high voltage power lines and pushed vehicles off the highway like toys.
Joyce Eels said she can live with the fact that a tornado took off most of the roof of her home — she's just thankful to be alive.
"All the important things are OK," she said Thursday. "My husband and family are OK. That's the important stuff."
Tornadoes or high winds are believed to have killed at least four people in three states, including a woman who was flung into a tree by a twister that witnesses said was as wide as two football fields.
At least 65 tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska by late Wednesday, the National Weather Service said.
"This will go down as the third biggest outbreak of March tornadoes ever seen," says CBS News meteorologist George Cullen. "Ironically, the worst March outbreak occurred just last year when 73 touched down on the 20th and 21st of the month."
The outbreak might not be over, however.
"Today's threat will be found from Texas into Oklahoma and Arkansas, while the rest of the Plains will be dealing with major flooding issues, as another 3-5 inches of rain is likely to fall from midday today into the later part of Saturday," warns Cullen.
In Oklahoma, a 7-year-old girl was treated at a hospital for cuts, and two people were injured when a van was thrown from the Kilpatrick Turnpike into a concrete culvert, said Oklahoma City Deputy Fire Chief Tony Young.
Vance and Barbra Woodbury were killed Wednesday when a twister blew apart their home near the Panhandle community of Elmwood.
"We set off the tornado sirens, but they live too far out to hear them," said Dixie Parker, Beaver County's emergency management director. "The house was just flattened, the out buildings are gone. All that's left is debris."
In Colorado, Rosemary Rosales, 28, died after being found critically injured in a tree after a huge tornado destroyed several homes and damaged dozens of others in Holly, a town of 1,000 people about 235 miles southeast of Denver near the Kansas line.
"All they heard was this big ugly noise, and they didn't have no time to run," said
"It's numbing, it's just numbing, there are just so many things that you see that in and of itself if you just saw it standing alone, would be startling, it would be stunning but after a while if you walk through it you become sort of numbed by it," said Gov. Bill Ritter as he toured Holly (left).
In the Texas Panhandle, Monte Ford, 53, was killed when he was thrown from his trailer after high winds caused it to roll. Storms moving across the northern part of the state brought up to 7 inches of rain in areas and led to numerous high-water rescues on flooded roads.
Tornadoes uprooted trees, overturned trucks and injured at least three people in the Panhandle. The region also got baseball-sized hail.
On Thursday, flooding plagued parts of the state, with traffic accidents and high-water rescues reported.
Oklahomans were bracing for more severe weather, as watches and warnings continued.
"We're probably about 50 tornados ahead of the usual point where we are this year, Warren Faidley, an extreme weather journalist who has been chasing storms for 20 years, said on CBS News' The Early Show. "And of course, unfortunately this year, too, the number of fatalities, we've already reached the average. The three-year average for tornado fatalities is 46 and I think we're approaching 50 now ,unfortunately, so that's a very unusual statistic this early in the season."
Faidley isn't sure whether global warming is a factor, but told Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith it could be.
"The earth is getting warmer. There's no doubt about that. The statistics show that no matter who you listen to. And of course storms love heat. Heat is energy to storms," Faidley said.
"It will be interesting to see what happens in April and May when the tornado season peaks."
The same storm system dumped snow on Wyoming, causing highway pileups and closing large portions of three interstates. In the Wind River Mountains, 58 inches of snow had fallen by Thursday morning.
At least 800 homes in north-central Wyoming were without heat and electricity Thursday, down from about 2,200 the day before.