A car was crushed by a collapsed building housing a Gansevoort mural that was struck by a tornado in Rome, New York, on Tuesday. Much of the United States and Canada is cleaning up or still dealing with a new wave of severe storms that have caused death and destruction from the Plains to New England this week.
John Clifford/Daily Sentinel/Associated Press
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John Clifford/Daily Sentinel/Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Another wave of severe storms has battered a swath of the United States and Canada, causing flash flooding in the Ozark Mountains that required water rescues and a tornado that devastated an upstate New York community and left drivers stranded. .
This week, a relentless series of storms caused death or destruction from the Plains to New England. Hundreds of thousands lost power and air conditioning during sweltering days.
As of Wednesday, up to 11 inches of rain had fallen in parts of Arkansas and the Missouri Ozarks, the National Weather Service said.
Marion County Sheriff Gregg Alexander said 86 people were evacuated from a nursing home in Yellville, Arkansas, by buses and ambulances after water levels rose to about 4 feet during a flash flood. Part of a bridge was washed away and a historic courthouse was flooded.
Upstate New York cities are cleaning up after a storm swept through upstate New York on Tuesday, bringing with it strong winds, spectacular lightning and flying debris, killing one person.
In the small town of Rome, New York, a tornado ripped off roofs, overturned vehicles and turned several buildings into rubble.
The steeples of First Presbyterian Church and St. Mary’s Church, both built in the 1800s, collapsed and their roofs were torn off. Copper plates from the roof of the First Presbyterian Church were found on a telephone pole a quarter of a mile away.
The winds were strong enough to move a B-52 bomber on display at the Griffith Business and Technology Park, a multi-ton tourist attraction. A landmark mural of Revolutionary War figures on horseback in Rome was destroyed, as was the building on which it was painted. Only an image of a horse’s hoof remains.
Speaking outside St. Mary’s Church, Governor Kathy Hochul said it was a “miracle” that no one was killed in the city of 31,000 people. She visited the city center on Wednesday and said 22 buildings had been damaged or destroyed. She described seeing trees “fallen like toothpicks” and told of an overturned mobile home with people inside. The governor was surprised by the narrow escapes, including two children in the medical waiting room who emerged unscathed despite parts of the building being “destroyed”.
A preliminary damage survey released by the National Weather Service on Wednesday night estimated the Rome tornado’s top winds at 135 mph and gave it an EF2 rating on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which is considered “severe.”
Chiropractor Kingsley Kabari was caring for a patient in his second-floor office in Rome on Tuesday afternoon when a tornado siren went off on his phone. By the time he picked it up to silence it, the storm had arrived, blowing out windows and tearing off the roof of the two-story brick house, sending debris flying, he said.
“It was like a bomb was dropped on the building by strong winds. Things were flying everywhere – and inside,” he said Wednesday.
The tornado cut off the road between two nursing homes run by Grand Healthcare, sparing them the worst damage, but strong winds and heavy rain battered the buildings, knocking them out of power, regional vice president Bruce Gendron said.
He said he was at a nursing home when the storm hit and staff moved residents away from windows to prevent trees from falling into the building.
Backup generators at the facilities were activated, keeping most systems intact until normal power was restored Wednesday afternoon, he said.
“To us residents of Rome: Don’t lose heart. This community is resilient and we will rebuild,” Mayor Jeff Lanigan said.
A weaker tornado, initially classified as an EF1 with estimated maximum winds of 110 mph, also made landfall in Lyme, New Hampshire, 230 miles away Tuesday night, the weather service said. It stayed on the ground for about 1.8 miles and knocked down at least 100 trees, said Jon Palmer, a weather service meteorologist in Gray, Maine.
An 82-year-old man was killed when storm debris hit him in Canastota, about 30 miles away, Village Administrator Jeremy Ryan said. Hochul said three houses collapsed in the community and 30 other buildings were damaged.
Ashley Joiner, 17, uses a squeegee to push water out of the fellowship hall at Flippin Christian Church in Arkansas after flooding on Wednesday out.
Stacey Vandagriff/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Associated Press
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Stacey Vandagriff/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Associated Press
A thousand miles away in Flippin, Arkansas, people went door-to-door to persuade as many as 40 residents to flee the dangerous conditions before the floodwaters began to recede. State emergency managers said at least 30 residents were evacuated from an apartment complex in Greenbrier, 34 miles north of Little Rock.
“We’re not complaining because we absolutely need the rainwater, but it’s going to take a while for us to be able to drain the water and clear the roads again,” Marion County Sheriff Alexander said.
As water levels rose rapidly before dawn Wednesday, Bill Scruggs of Wild Bill’s Outfitter, south of Yellville, and his crew scrambled to get out of a sandbar on the Buffalo National River. Save their canoes and kayaks.
Nearly 5 inches of rain fell overnight in the tourist center of Branson, Missouri. People were also rescued from the flooded mobile home park.
Trees fell in Keene, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, hitting homes and cars and forcing some residents to evacuate. Flooding temporarily closed several major roads around Toronto, leaving drivers stranded. Authorities said they rescued at least 14 people from highway flooding.
More than 140,000 homes and businesses in northeastern U.S. states were without power Wednesday night, according to PowerOutage.us. The weather could exceed 100 degrees in some places along the East Coast from Maine to the Carolinas.
A storm that brought half an inch of rain helped contain a forest fire burning at a New Jersey military bombing range, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said.
This week’s severe weather has hit the Chicago area particularly hard. The weather service said at least 18 tornadoes have been confirmed so far in northern Illinois and northwest Indiana: six on Sunday and 12 on Monday night.
Senior meteorologist Brett Borchardt said the larger group of storms emerged from a persistent storm that started in Iowa and rolled eastward for several hours.
“It’s not unprecedented, but it’s very unusual. When we get storms like this, they are prolific tornado makers,” he said.
Across the United States, the storm has killed at least five people, including one in New York. An 88-year-old couple was killed in their car near Elsa, Illinois, on Tuesday, and a 76-year-old passenger was killed in a pickup truck in Rockford, Illinois, on Sunday. A fallen tree killed a 44-year-old woman in Cedar Lake, Indiana, on Monday.
A cold front is expected to bring scattered showers and thunderstorms across the East over the next few days, but will also provide relief from hot weather in the eastern and central United States, according to the weather service. However, high temperatures are expected in parts of the west and southeast.
