Thunderstorms, Tornadoes Leave 3 Dead

Thunderstorms packing tornadoes blew across parts of the South and Midwest on Friday, smashing the glass dome of a Bowling Green shopping mall and damaging residential neighborhoods in the city.

Three deaths were blamed on the storms, one in Kentucky and two in Tennessee.

The most severe damage in Kentucky was in Bowling Green, where a thunderstorm spawned a series of small tornadoes, the National Weather Service reported. Weather service officials could not confirm whether the tornadoes touched down.

The storm shattered a glass dome at Greenwood Mall, the city’s largest. The mall had just opened when the storm struck.

“I was just coming in the door and I heard glass crash, and the wind started blowing and I just hit the floor,” said Frances Graham, who works at the mall. “It broke all the car windows out of our cars out front, and I really don’t know what the extent of the damage is.”

The mall was evacuated because of a gas leak.

The storm caused damage in other business and residential areas of Bowling Green, overturning cars and mobile homes, authorities said.

Elsewhere across Kentucky, thunderstorms downed trees and power lines and damaged homes and farm buildings in several counties.

High wind overturned a mobile home and killed a woman in Hardin County, authorities said.

One man was found dead underneath his house after a string of tornadoes swept across southeastern Tennessee. Another body was found in a nearby field, a spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said.

Wind damaged mobile homes and injured two people in an overturned camper in Illinois, and scattered tornadoes in Indiana damaged trees and farm buildings and injured three people, officials said. Scattered blackouts were reported in Chicago after thunderstorms.

Thunderstorms also hit southwestern Ohio at midday, but no funnel clouds touched down. Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co. said about 7,000 customers were without power in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky.

Thunderstorms also raked parts of Missouri early Friday, peeling off roofs, downing power lines and tree limbs, and pelting some areas with hail. Possible tornado damage was reported along a 20-mile swath southwest of St. Louis.