Nature & Environment

Deadly Tornadoes Hit Midwest, Left Three People Dead And Destroyed Houses

Elaine Hannah
First Posted: Mar 04, 2017 03:29 AM EST

Tornadoes struck the upper Midwest and northern Arkansas on Tuesday and Wednesday. The calamity killed three people and destroyed several houses and buildings in Iowa, Illinois, Arkansas, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky, among others.

The Huffington Post reports that the National Weather Service reported 20 tornadoes moved through Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee and Iowa. It also reported one fatality from a "large and powerful tornado" that struck the city of Ottawa, southwest of Chicago in north central Illinois at 4:45 p.m. It damaged the buildings in the area including a nursing home in LaSalle County.

Patti Thompson, a spokeswoman for Ottawa's Emergency Management Agency, said that a tornado victim was killed by an uprooted tree. She also said that it was not known how many people were hurt by the storm but that it was relatively few. "We had some damage reported in several counties, both in the north-central part of the state as well as the southern part of the state."

Another man, a 71-year-old, was killed and injured his wife when a tornado hit a building near the man's house near Crossville, Illinois. In Perry County, Missouri, another person lost his life when the tornado hit the area. Homes were damaged and vehicles were blown off near the small town of Perryville, according to The New York Post.

Forecaster Ariel Cohen said the sunshine warmed the region and roiled the atmosphere ahead of an approaching cold front. The threat was expected to shift to the southeastern U.S. on Wednesday.

See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone

More on SCIENCEwr