Severe Storms Leave Half a Million Without Power Across Nine States
More than half a million customers across nine states from Texas to Pennsylvania woke up to a dark Monday morning, as powerful storms and tornadoes over the weekend left at least 18 people dead.
As of 4 a.m., nearly 200,000 outages were reported in Kentucky, with more than 200,000 customers without power across Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Virginia, and West Virginia, according to poweroutage.us. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency in response to the widespread outages.
The National Weather Service issued tornado watches for more than 12 million people in the Southeast and Midwest, with most warnings set to expire by 6 a.m. Eastern time Monday. The storm system is expected to move from the Ohio Valley into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast later on Memorial Day, bringing heavy rain and thunderstorms.
This latest storm system follows a series of severe weather events in the region, including a powerful tornado in Iowa last week that claimed five lives. On Sunday, severe thunderstorms in Missouri produced hail the size of baseballs and tornadoes that caused damage near the town of Mountain View.
Forecasters predict that the storms forming over Missouri will intensify as they move east, bringing strong winds into Kentucky and Tennessee. Bill Bunting, a meteorologist with the Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center, warned that tornadoes and large hail could be possible.
Governor Beshear reported downed power lines and tornado damage across Kentucky, with one confirmed death statewide as of Sunday afternoon. Despite the devastation, he remains hopeful, stating, “We have gotten through at least the first part of this event, and we want to make sure we don’t lose anybody else.”
