CANTON, Texas — At least 13 people have been killed by tornadoes or flooding in the South and Midwest by a storm that also dumped a rare late-season blizzard in western Kansas on Sunday.
Tornadoes hit several small towns in East Texas, killing four people. Three people were killed by flooding and winds in Arkansas, with officials saying two more people are missing. Rushing water swept away a car, drowning a woman in Missouri; and a death was reported in Sunday morning storms that raked Mississippi.
Flooding closed part of Interstate 44 near Hazelgreen, Missouri, and officials expected it would be at least a day before the highway reopened. Interstate 70 in western Kansas was closed because crews were waiting for snow falling at 3 to 4 inches an hour being blown by 35 mph winds to subside.
An Arkansas volunteer fire department chief was killed while working during storms in north-central Arkansas, state police said.
Cove Creek/Pearson Fire Chief Doug Decker died shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday after being struck by a vehicle while checking water levels on Highway 25 near Quitman, about 40 miles north of Little Rock, Trooper Liz Chapman said. His death will be included as a storm-related death.
A 2-year-old girl in Tennessee died after being struck by a heavy, metal soccer goal post that was blown over by high winds, The Metro Nashville Police Department posted on its Twitter page on Sunday evening.
Melanie Espinoza Rodriguez was transported to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead, according to a second post from the department.
Rescuers in northwest Arkansas continued Sunday to look for an 18-month-old girl and a 4-year-old boy who were in a vehicle swept off a bridge by floodwaters in Hindsville, the Madison County Sheriff’s Office said.
In northwest Arkansas, a 10-year-old girl drowned in Springdale and the body of a woman who disappeared riding an inner tube Saturday was found in a creek in Eureka Springs. Also, a 65-year-old woman in DeWitt in the eastern part of the state was struck and killed in her home by a falling tree, officials said.
In Texas, search teams were going door to door Sunday after the tornadoes the day before flattened homes, uprooted trees and flipped several pickup trucks at a Dodge dealership in Canton.
“It is heartbreaking and upsetting to say the least,” Canton Mayor Lou Ann Everett told reporters Sunday morning.
The storms cut a path of destruction 35 miles long and 15 miles wide in Van Zandt County, Everett said.
The National Weather Service found evidence of four tornadoes with one twister possibly on the ground for 50 miles.
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