Severe storms spawned a dozen reported tornadoes in Oklahoma and Arkansas on May 30, injuring at least five people and sending residents scrambling for cover 10 days after a powerful twister killed 24 people in Oklahoma.
In western Arkansas, two people were injured in a tornado near Oden that destroyed a house and downed power lines. Three others were injured in a storm north of Amity, the state emergency management department said.
On Thursday night, storm activity in Arkansas left more than 25,000 customers without power, including nearly 13,000 in metropolitan Little Rock, according to electricity provider Entergy Arkansas. The Little Rock area also had flash flooding, a dispatcher for the city's fire department said.
One tornado warning included Cushing, Oklahoma, a critical hub for the U.S. oil markets northeast of Oklahoma City, but the storm passed through without damaging tanks that store more than 50 million barrels of oil, said Bob Noltensmeyer, Cushing's emergency management director.
More storms are expected on Friday, said Greg Dial, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center.
“Tomorrow will be round two, we will have another round of severe weather, similar area, Oklahoma into the lower Mississippi Valley area,” Dial said.
On Thursday, a tornado touched down in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, town spokeswoman Stephanie Higgins said in an email. There was damage to a few buildings, but no injuries were reported, she said.
Several counties to the north and south of Oklahoma Citywere under tornado warnings at various times on Thursday.
Oklahoma City and Moore, Oklahoma, which were struck by the fatal EF5 tornado on May 20, were not immediately part of Thursday's warnings but were within the forecast area for severe weather that stretched over the Plains states and Midwest.
The tornado on May 20 that struck Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City, damaged some 13,000 homes. Residents of Moorewere watching the storms warily. Kristen Pupek, whose neighborhood was slightly damaged, said she was going about her life on Thursday.
“The way I see it, we can't all just sit around and worry about when the next tornado is going to hit,” she said.
Moore has been hit by four damaging tornadoes in the last 15 years, including two rated at the strongest EF5 level.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
