Crammed into their two-door Toyota Celica with three huskies, Hailey Hart and her fiance Steve Romero hugged and prayed as a tornado rolled the car upside down before tossing it on its wheels again.
They heard screams for help minutes after the twister ripped apart their home in Tylertown, Mississippi. “It was a bad dream come true,” Romero said.
Next door, Hart’s grandparents crawled out from the rubble of their house where they had sought shelter in a bathroom on Saturday. They all escaped with just a few scratches and aches.
Throughout the South and Midwest, residents and work crews were beginning to clean up Monday and survey the destruction after severe weather across seven states kicked up a devastating combination of wildfires, dust storms and tornadoes, claiming at least 39 lives since Friday.
Wind-driven wildfires across Oklahoma destroyed more than 400 homes, including more than 70 in and around Stillwater, home to Oklahoma State University. Four deaths were blamed on the fires or high winds, the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management said Sunday.
Crews trying to control the fires were quickly overwhelmed while going up against the high winds and low humidity fueling the flames on Friday, said Stillwater Fire Chief Terry Essary.
“It’s an insurmountable task,” he said.
In Mississippi, six people died and more than 200 were displaced by a string of tornadoes across three counties, said Gov. Tate Reeves.
Within about an hour of each other, two big twisters tore through the county that’s home to hard-hit Tylertown on Saturday, according to a preliminary report from the National Weather Service.
At least three people, including an 82-year-old woman, were killed in central Alabama. In Troy, parks officials said a recreation center where many residents had taken refuge had to be closed due to damage. No one was injured.
Scattered twisters killed at least a dozen people in the Missouri, authorities said.
Dakota Henderson said he and others rescuing trapped neighbors found five bodies in rubble Friday night outside what remained of his aunt’s house in Wayne County, Missouri.
In Arkansas, officials confirmed three deaths.
The high winds spurred dust storms that led to almost a dozen deaths in car crashes Friday.
Eight people died in a Kansas highway pileup involving at least 50 vehicles, according to the state highway patrol. Authorities said three people also were killed in car crashes during a dust storm in Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle.
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