OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Tornadoes raked the southern Plains Wednesday, overturning cars on an Oklahoma City interstate and destroying dozens of homes.
No deaths were immediately reported from the twisters that hit Oklahoma and rural parts of Kansas and Nebraska.
The worst damage seemed to be in the Oklahoma City area. A twister destroyed homes at Bridge Creek, Amber and Blanchard, southwest of the city, and it appeared another tornado touched down later Wednesday evening when a second storm came through the area.
"We have damage reports, so we do strongly think there was a tornado on the south side of Oklahoma City," meteorologist Michael Scotten with the National Weather Service in Norman said after the second storm that hit around 8:40 p.m.
That storm flipped vehicles on Interstate 35 and left power lines strewn across the roadway, Scotten said.
Lara O'Leary, a spokeswoman for Emergency Medical Services Authority said late Wednesday that the company transported 12 patients from a trailer park in south Oklahoma City to local hospitals. She did not have further details about the extent of the patients' injuries.
In Grady County, all animals were accounted for after a zoo about 25 miles southwest of Oklahoma City was hit by a tornado, Alisa Voegeli, a dispatcher at the sheriff's office, said.
The storms dumped up to 6 inches in the southern part of Oklahoma City, prompting the city to issue a flash flood emergency for the first time in its history, said city spokeswoman Kristy Yager. Road crews were waiting for the storms to abate to set up barricades and evaluate trouble spots.
"They'll dispatch as soon as the storms end and the weather clears," Yager said.
O'Leary said the ambulance service responded to water rescues "all over" the Oklahoma City metro area. Two ambulance crews required also assistance after getting stuck in high water, she said.
The Storm Prediction Center had warned that bad weather would come to Tornado Alley, and more storms were possible later in the week, with flooding a major concern.
"People just really need to stay weather aware, have a plan and understand that severe storms are possible across portions of the southern Plains almost daily through Saturday," National Weather Service meteorologist Jonathan Kurtz said.
In Oklahoma, Grady County Emergency Management Director Dale Thompson said about 10 homes were destroyed in Amber and 25 were destroyed in Bridge Creek. As the storm moved to the east, forecasters declared a tornado emergency for Moore, where seven schoolchildren were among 24 people killed in a storm two years ago. When the first of the storms moved through Wednesday, school districts held their pupils in safe places.
At Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, people were twice evacuated into a tunnel outside the security zone.
In Nebraska, 10 to 15 homes were damaged near Grand Island, and between Hardy and Ruskin, near the Kansas line.
At least nine tornadoes were reported in Kansas, the strongest of them in the sparsely populated north-central part of the state. That included a large tornado near the tiny town of Republic just south of the Nebraska state line, where some homes were damaged. In Harvey County, a tornado destroyed a hog barn and damaged trees, according to the National Weather Service.
EdemAya, a community so rich in mineral resources, and one of the five clans that make up the present day Ikot Abasi Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria is hosting the world on the 29 th of March 2013. As we gathered from the head of the organizing group, Miss Precious Dominic Akpan, the event is scheduled to take place at the Cooperative Hall, Ikot Ubo Akama, Edemaya in Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom State. Three beauties are to emerge from the event which promises to be the first ever organized pageant. The Eligibility Form which are currently on sale for a token of N 2,000 will qualify the contestants to struggle for Miss EdemAya, Miss Democracy of EdemAya and Miss Culture & Tourism of EdemAya. The screening and training of the contestants commences on 25 th through 28 th of March 2013. We have been reliably informed that the event will parade ‘who is who’ in the music industry in Akwa Ibom State and a popular reggae artist from Delta State. Imagine the sque...
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