Toddler killed in Michigan, family rescued in Maryland as tornadoes ravage Northeast

A two-year-old boy was killed when a huge tree uprooted by a tornado fell on a family’s home in a Detroit suburb, as storms left a trail of devastation across the Northeast on Wednesday, trapping many families in their homes.

The tree fell through the roof and landed on a bed where the child and his mother were sleeping around 3:30 p.m. in Livonia, Michigan, the latest fatality in a long and deadly tornado season.

The unidentified woman was taken to a local hospital and is in critical condition, the city of Livonia said in a statement, while the child’s death was pronounced at the scene.

“Emergency crews worked tirelessly for nearly an hour to remove the roof and parts of the tree and then lift the tree using high-pressure air bags to free the victims,” ​​the statement said.

“This is a terrible tragedy for our community,” added Livonia Mayor Maureen Miller Brosnan. “We, too, are heartbroken and want to express our deepest condolences.”

The National Weather Service confirmed that an EF-1 tornado with winds up to 95 mph touched down in Livonia and moved 5.5 miles and 450 yards.

Elsewhere, a strong storm spawned a tornado that swept 45 miles across Montgomery County, Maryland, on Wednesday. In the Maryland town of Gaithersburg, north of Washington DC, five people were injured when a large tree fell on their home. Four of the five people had to be rescued and all were taken to a local hospital for treatment – fire officials said one suffered a “traumatic injury.”

“They were pulled out of a room right here under all this debris. There was pretty significant damage, there were some injuries,” said Pete Piringer, spokesman for the Montgomery County Fire and EMS Department, in a post on X.

He shared a video showing a huge uprooted tree lying on its side, partially destroying the house.

Videos uploaded to social media show a huge funnel cloud over Gaithersburg, to the surprise of residents in an area not used to tornadoes. “First #tornado I’ve ever seen, crazy for MD!” one person wrote on X.

“When it came through … it was just an eerie color and then all of a sudden it happened really quickly and we heard kind of a foundation shaking,” a Gaithersburg resident told NBC Washington, declining to give his name.

One storm chaser, Mark Monis, filmed the moment the tornado hit Gaithersburg while sitting in his car. He told NBC Washington, “I just thought, ‘Jesus Christ, this could have been worse.’ So, thank God, it was probably only an F0 or F1. If it had taken my truck, I probably would have been dead.”

Elsewhere in Montgomery County, at least four homes were damaged. Between 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, 88 weather events were reported.

Firefighters also investigated reported storm damage in the Williams Estates area of ​​Baltimore County.

In Frazeysburg, a village in rural Ohio, an emergency shelter opened Thursday morning. There were no reports of injuries as what the local sheriff’s office described as a tornado caused extensive damage.

The National Weather Service forecast showers and thunderstorms throughout the East Coast today Thursday, while a severe heat wave continues in the western states and Texas.