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| The giant, deadly tornado churning through Mayflower, Arkansas Sunday evening. |
The worst tornado so far was one that took a long track through central and northern Arkansas.
It was chilling to, from my very safe perch in Vermont, watch a live feed of television station KTHV in Little Rock try to warn people in towns like Mayflower, Vilonia and El Paso, Arkansas take shelter from the approaching monster tornado.
Simultaneously, I had the Arkansas State Police scanner on, and moments after KTHV warned these towns of the storm, you'd hear dispatchers and police sending ambulances and rescue vehicles to these very towns that had been warned.
However, the tornado was so strong and wide in many cases, taking shelter might not have saved people, especially if they didn't have a basement.
And somebody posted a disturbing video on Twitter that showed destroyed cars and screaming, injured people on Interstate 40 in Arkansas after the tornado crossed the highway. Police said miraculously, nobody died on the highway.
At least 18 people died in the tornadoes, most of them in the Arkansas tornado or in another one that Quapaw, Oklahoma.
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| From @Amy_Hawley via Twitter, a tornado flings debris in Baxter Springs, Kansas on Sunday. |
Another wave of severe thunderstorms slammed the tornado ravaged part of Arkansas hours after the original huge twister hit. Flash flooding is also now a threat in the tornado zone.
Earlier Sunday evening, my heart sank as reports of a large, dangerous tornado was approaching Joplin, Missouri, which was devastated with a huge tornado that killed about 160 people in May, 2011.
That tornado, while spreading destruction and death, pretty much missed Joplin.
I'm afraid there might be more deaths today, as more strong tornadoes are likely in the Deep South and southern Ohio Valley today.
We'd been lucky this year up until now with tornadoes in the United States.
I guess our luck has run out.
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