Following a catastrophic severe weather outbreak, dust storms, and wildfires caused by a major storm system over the weekend, damage assessments and recovery efforts are still ongoing.
Since the tragedy started on Friday, at least 43 individuals have been officially declared dead in eight states, ranging from Texas to North Carolina.
Over 1,000 storm reports linked to the event have been received overall, according to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center.
Twelve people have died in Missouri as a result of the storm, followed by eight in Kansas, when a dust storm caused a multi-vehicle disaster on Interstate 70 close to the Kansas-Colorado state boundary.
In Oklahoma, more fatalities linked to wildfires and high winds were recorded.
Thirteen states reported more than 90 tornadoes
Since Friday, at least 92 tornadoes have been verified in over a dozen states, including two EF-4 tornadoes in Arkansas near Larkin and Diaz.
Additionally, preliminary surveys revealed EF-4 tornado damage near Tylertown, Mississippi, where a house was swept from its foundation by winds of 170 mph.
There have been at least nine confirmed EF-3 tornadoes, with some of them making landfall in Alabama, Missouri, and Arkansas.
During the severe weather outbreak, at least 26 EF-2 tornadoes and 34 EF-1 tornadoes made landfall.
As storm surveys continue, the number of tornadoes is anticipated to fluctuate. Some tornado tracks have been crossed into another National Weather Service office warning area or joined into longer track tornadoes since the outbreak, creating duplicates.
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Teams from the National Weather Service will keep looking into the damage to see if it was from straight-line winds or tornadoes.
Teams from the NWS office in Birmingham, Alabama, reported that they have been investigating 16 sets of damage tracks from Saturday’s storms around the state.
