The Midwest has taken several dangerous and fatal hits by late-season tornadoes and thunderstorms, according to CBS News. Neighborhoods were demolished, cars were flipped and trees were uprooted. Power lines have been destroyed and there have been causalities. The Bears game had to be delayed in Illinois and more than one hundred people were injured. One resident, Michael Perdun, calling from his cell phone said, “The whole neighborhood’s gone. The wall of my fireplace is all that is left of my house.” Hiding for safety in the basement with his daughter, he continued, “ . . . all of a sudden I could see daylight up the stairway, and my house was gone.” The neighborhood was destroyed in seconds.
Four hundred houses were obliterated and damaged in Washington. Two people were killed in Michigan. One poor soul, Philip Daniel Smith, was found tangled in high-voltage power lines after going outside to investigate his surroundings. Power lines were knocked down, gas lines were ruptured and roofs were ripped off as the tornado went indiscriminately from one town to another. Farmhouses were turned inside out and vehicles were lifted through the air and smashed upon falling trees. People are being treated in hospitals for broken bones and head injuries. To make things worse there have also been reports of looting in Washington which seems frivolous when so many lives are in peril. Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois said he would help people with “every asset we have.”
Scientists believe the Midwest will be hit by thirty to forty tornadoes, but sometimes it can be the same tornado. Even a one hundred ten year old building couldn’t survive the storms. A uranium enrichment plant was also hit, but no hazardous elements were released. Strong storms don’t usually appear this late in the season, but people should always keep an eye out for even the slightest change in weather because “things can change very quickly,” commented a weather meteorologist, Matt Friedlein. President Obama has made contact with federal, state and local officials.
Image Credit: CBS News