Twisters Tear Through Oklahoma, Kansas

The spring weekend brought tornadoes to Oklahoma and Kansas and record rainfall to much of New England. Through it all, no serious injuries were reported.

A tornado ripped through Oklahoma City on Saturday night, tossing cars, trucks and boats through the air and cutting power lines. Three tornadoes struck north-central and northeast Kansas too, uprooting trees and downing power lines, and one did extensive damage to the Sabetha business district, officials said Sunday.

Workers at the Frontier City amusement park in Oklahoma City herded hundreds of families into an indoor entertainment arena as the tornado approached. Two children reportedly suffered asthma attacks, others were hit by shattering glass, and dozens of cars were damaged in the parking lot.

“There were no serious injuries, just scrapes and bruises,” park spokesman Brent Gooden said Sunday. Police said several businesses and other buildings suffered heavy damage in the city’s northwest corner.

Gayle Weems said his 20-foot boat, which had been hitched to his car, was sucked up and thrown down the street.

“It was all ready to go fishing on Monday. But not now,” he said. “When I came out into the yard, it looked like a war zone. Cars were upside down and all the windows were out. It was pretty wild.”

Officials at the OG&E; electric utility said power was knocked out to about 30,000 customers, but crews worked through the night, and it had been restored to all but about 10,000 by Sunday morning.

In Sabetha, Kan., near the northeast border with Nebraska, 18 buildings were partially to severely damaged and half of City Hall was destroyed, said Don Rogers of the National Weather Service’s Topeka office.

“Officials went out there this morning to assess the situation and the damage,” he said.

The New England rainfall flooded homes, cut power and disrupted the region’s transportation system, although no injuries were reported, emergency officials said.

Flood warnings remained in effect Sunday. The National Weather Service predicted severe, scattered thunderstorms that could add up to an inch of rain to the 9 inches already drenching parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

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Authorities said the rain was the most ever recorded for a June day in New England since rainfall tracking began in 1871.

At the storm’s height Saturday, about 20,000 utility customers in Massachusetts were without power. A lightning strike crippled the transformer that supplies Nantucket with its electricity, darkening the island for hours, a spokeswoman for Massachusetts Electric said.

There were also scattered power outages reported in Rhode Island and New Hampshire. About 3,000 customers in Massachusetts were still without power Sunday.