Deadly Tornadoes, Storms Gouge 5 States; 27 Killed

Tornadoes and spring-like thunderstorms swept across Arkansas and four other states Saturday, flattening buildings, sweeping away mobile homes and flooding whole subdivisions. As many as 27 people were killed and more than 200 were injured.

Arkansas suffered the largest number of fatalities, at least 20.

“It’s horrible. The whole downtown is gone,” said Jeremy Cox of Arkadelphia in central Arkansas.

Neal Wright, 11, heard sirens and alerted his deaf grandfather by making swirling motions with his hands. The two escaped before a falling tree demolished their house, said Sharon Wright, Neal’s mother.

Hundreds of homes in the Little Rock area were damaged, and two hospitals were treating 80 people.

Trailer park owner Bill Pruett, 53, said a twister crushed five trailers.

“It was like playing chess--it would take one house and then leave one, it would take another one and then leave one,” he said.

As many as seven people were killed by storms in Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio.

A tornado that struck Randolph, Miss., early Saturday destroyed four homes and damaged nearly a dozen other homes and businesses.

The twister killed 50-year-old Huey Totor, throwing his body 75 feet from his mobile home, said coroner Barry Moorman.

By early Saturday afternoon, a record 7.5 inches of rain had fallen in Louisville, Ky., in 24 hours. Rescue workers pulled people from the roofs of cars stalled in as much as 6 feet of water and carried others out of flooded homes.

A woman was killed when she drove her van off an 80-foot cliff Friday night during heavy rain that severely reduced visibility, authorities said. The van was found Saturday in the rain-swollen Barren River in south-central Kentucky.

Another person died when a pickup truck ran off a bridge in western Kentucky, and a 13-year-old boy drowned when he was swept into a culvert near Louisville.

Hopkinsville, in southwestern Kentucky, received about 8 inches of rain and officials ran out of “Road Closed” signs. The weather also canceled a congressional hearing scheduled for Saturday in western Kentucky because the Air Force decided it was too dangerous to fly House members into the state.

Several people were reported missing along southern Ohio’s Great Brush Creek, which was 8 feet above flood stage. The body of a 16-year-old boy was found near the confluence of two creeks north of the Ohio River town of Rome.

A woman’s body was found in a flooded creek in western Tennessee several hours after high water swept her car off a bridge.

And a teenager died in western Tennessee when a tornado ripped through her home.