Powerful tornadoes swept through the U.S. heartland and Great Lakes region, killing at least eight people — and the onslaught may not be over, forecasters warn.
An observer caught on camera a massive twister as it hit Union Lake near the Union City, Michigan, area in the southwestern part of the state, the man doing the filming exclaiming, “There goes a house!”
The twisters began Thursday as part of a system of unstable air stretching from the southern Plains all the way to the Great Lakes.
The Daily Mail noted that in Branch County three deaths were confirmed, caused by a tornado locals called “the Godzilla of twisters” as seen in the video near Union City.
The tornado tore through trees, mowing them down like a giant weed whacker as it barreled along the lake’s shoreline.
Twelve others were reportedly injured as emergency crews raced through mangled streets and splintered homes.
A fourth victim in Michigan was confirmed dead after a tornado hit in the Edwardsburg area further to the west about 40 miles from Lake Michigan and just north of the Indiana border, according to Cass County authorities.
On Friday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer activated the state’s Emergency Operations Center to “coordinate an all-hands-on-deck response” to the weather event in the southwestern part of the state.
The first casualties of the moving weather system were reported Thursday when a teacher and her 13-year-old daughter who were traveling in their car in Fairview, Oklahoma, were killed when a twister slammed into their car.
Two more Oklahomans were confirmed dead on Friday 175 miles away in the city of Beggs, where an eyewitnesses shared images showing multi-vortex twisters blasting through the region.
Meteorologists say the volatile atmospheric conditions are created by unseasonable heat, pulled north by a storm system where it collides with cooler Canadian air.
Forecasters were warning Saturday morning that the threat of severe weather remains.
“Severe weather is forecast into the weekend across much of the Central and Eastern U.S.,” the Weather Channel was reporting. “Storms are possible from Texas to the interior Northeast and also include parts of the Midwest and the Southeast. This is part of a multi-day siege of thunderstorms also with hail, damaging winds and flooding rain.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
