At least one dead after a tornado ripped through northeastern Oklahoma, leaving a trail of damage in its wake

At least one person was killed and two others were missing after a tornado ripped through a small town in northeastern Oklahoma on Monday evening, officials said.

The tornado destroyed homes and toppled trees and power lines as it ripped through the 1,000-person town of Barnsdall, about 40 minutes’ drive north of Tulsa. The nearby town of Bartlesville also took a “direct hit” from a funnel, according to Washington County Emergency Director Kary Cox. It was one of Several tornadoes broke out in the central United States amid a string of strong storms that extended into Tuesday.

Barnsdall suffered significant damage from the twister, with 30 or 40 homes completely leveled across the city, Mayor Johnny Kelly said at a news conference Tuesday morning. At this time, there was one confirmed death related to the extreme weather, but Kelly did not release the person’s identity. He said one or possibly two other people were unaccounted for, but added that officials had an idea of ​​where the missing people might be. Crews had searched for the missing people throughout the night until 4 a.m. and planned to resume the search later in the morning.

Another seven to eight people were injured in the tornado. Kelly said a firefighter was taken to a hospital Tuesday morning with chest pains, but did not specify the nature of the others’ injuries.

Stephen Nehrenz, meteorologist for CBS Tulsa affiliate KOTV, said on social media late Monday: “The Hampton Inn in Bartlesville was struck by the tornado tonight. They reportedly lost most of the roof of the building. So far it sounds like almost everyone is there.” Okay, based on what we originally heard.

“We took a direct hit from a tornado,” said Kary Fox with Washington County Emergency Management. “Please stay off the streets. Stay away from these damaged areas. We are having a lot of difficulty getting there to examine people and determine whether they have suffered any injuries due to the traffic congestion.”

Police officers and residents surveyed the damage in a Barnsdall neighborhood as lightning flashed and heavy rain fell, local television news footage showed. The tornado ripped the roof off a house before spitting it back onto the street.

The Oklahoma Department of Health reported that a nursing home was damaged and patients were evacuated. A natural gas leak and numerous road closures due to debris were also reported, according to Osage County Emergency Management.

CBS Tulsa affiliate KOTV quoted Osage County Emergency Management as saying there were confirmed reports of numerous injuries and widespread damage in Barnsdall. OCEM said many people were believed to be trapped in their homes and that downed power lines and concerns about possible gas leaks made it difficult to respond. County officials are working to clear the streets.

Authorities said search and rescue operations are underway on the Osage Nation reservation.

As of 5:45 a.m. local time, about 17,000 homes and businesses in Oklahoma were in the dark.

The National Weather Service in Tulsa had warned the previous evening that “a large and life-threatening tornado” was heading toward Barnsdall with wind gusts of up to 70 miles per hour. Meteorologist Brad McGavock said information about the size of the tornado and its reach was not immediately available Monday evening.

The storms began early Monday with gusty winds and rain. But after dark, tornadoes were spotted circling northern Oklahoma. Sometime that evening, a storm in the small town of Covington “produced intermittent tornadoes for more than an hour,” the National Weather Service said. Across the area, wind turbines spun rapidly in the wind and driving rain.

In Kansas, some areas were pelted by apple-sized hail measuring 3 inches in diameter.

The storms swept across Oklahoma while areas like Sulfur and Holdenville were still recovering from a storm Tornado that killed four people and left thousands without power late last month. Both the Plains and the Midwest were hit by tornadoes this spring.

Oklahoma’s State Emergency Operations Center, which is coordinating the storm response from a bunker near the state capital Oklahoma City, was still activated due to last weekend’s deadly storms.

More than 3.4 million people, 1,614 schools and 159 hospitals faced the greatest tornado threat in Oklahoma, parts of southern Kansas and far northern Texas on Monday, according to the weather service.

Monte Tucker, a farmer and rancher in the western Oklahoma town of Sweetwater, had spent Monday storing some of his tractors and heavy equipment in barns to protect them from hail. He said he let his neighbors know they could come to his house if the weather became dangerous.

“We built a house 10 years ago and my stubborn wife advocated for us to build a safe space,” Tucker said. He said the entire ground floor space was constructed with reinforced concrete walls.

A high-risk weather advisory was in effect Monday for Oklahoma and Kansas.

Bill Bunting, deputy director of the Storm Prediction Center, said such a warning from the center isn’t seen every day or every spring.

“This is the highest threat level we can assign,” he said.

It was last issued on March 31, 2023, when a massive storm system devastated parts of the South and Midwest, including Arkansas, Illinois and rural Indiana.

The increased risk is due to an unusual confluence: Winds gusting up to about 75 mph ripped through Colorado’s populated Front Range region, including the Denver area, on Monday.

The winds were generated by a low pressure system north of Colorado that also pulled in moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, increasing the risk of severe weather in the Plains, according to the National Weather Service office in the Denver area.

There was no risk of tornadoes or thunderstorms in Colorado.

It looks stormy in the USA all week. The eastern United States and the South are expected to take the brunt of the bad weather the rest of the week, including Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis and Cincinnati, cities home to more than 21 million people. It should be clear at the weekend.

In the meantime, Flooding in the Houston area began receding Monday after days of heavy rains in southeast Texas flooded neighborhoods and led to hundreds of flood rescues.