One person was killed and 10 others were injured, one critically, as tornadoes and severe weather struck the Midwest and mid-South Wednesday, destroying buildings, toppling semis and train cars, and tearing down trees, officials said.
One person was killed in Missouri between Delta and Advance, two communities around 11 miles apart in the southeastern part of the state, Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Clark Parrott said.
"Stay away and stay home," he said, because electric crews need access to the area.
There were also four people injured in Arkansas, four in Kentucky and two in Indiana, officials said. The person critically injured was hurt in a suspected tornado in Ballard County, Kentucky, when they were in a vehicle and taking shelter in a church carport, the county emergency management director said.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this devastating event," Ballard County Director of Emergency Management Travis Holder said in a statement.
Earlier Wednesday, a confirmed EF1 tornado struck Vernon County, Missouri, where eight train cars were knocked over and there was extensive tree damage, the National Weather Service said.
In the area of Lake City, Arkansas, a community of around 2,600, videos posted to social media showed what appeared to be a large funnel cloud.
There was severe property damage, Lake City Fire Chief Hunter Timms said, but there had been no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.
More than 23 million people were under tornado watches Wednesday night from Texas to Ohio, as well as western Kentucky and Tennessee, and forecasters said the severe weather could last for days.
A "tornado outbreak" was expected, with severe storms possible for the Lower Ohio Valley and the mid-South into the overnight hours, the weather service said.
Multiple, long-track EF3 tornadoes are possible, along with a potentially historic flash-flood event, forecasters said.
By late Wednesday, as a swath covering seven states still remained under tornado watches or warnings, 19 tornado reports had been made to the weather service, though reports are considered preliminary until surveys are done.
Funnel clouds were seen on the ground in Arkansas, video posted online showed, and the weather service said a confirmed tornado touched down in Poinsett County. NBC affiliate WMC of Memphis, Tennessee, posted photos from viewers showing tennis ball-sized hail that fell in Arkansas.
In the Missouri town of Pilot Grove, the roofs and other parts of buildings were ripped off and vehicles flipped, photos from the State Highway Patrol showed. First responders checked buildings for trapped and injured people. No deaths have been reported, the Highway Patrol said.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe said Wednesday that he was activating the National Guard to assist in the storm response.
In Cheatham County, Tennessee, car windshields were reported to have been blown out by hail close to the size of baseballs, the weather service said. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee declared a state of emergency Wednesday because of the storm.
Severe storms will be possible for the next five days in a row, with the greatest risk Wednesday.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency ahead of what he called a four-day severe weather event.
"Tornadoes are expected, and I know that’s tough to hear. And we are most concerned about the area of Western Kentucky that has gotten hit far too much, as well as a wider area of Western Kentucky,” Beshear said in a statement Wednesday.
The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center set a high risk level — 5 out of 5 — for severe weather across parts of the mid-South on Wednesday.
There was a moderate risk of excessive rainfall in which several inches of rain and flash flooding were forecast into the evening and overnight.
The tornado outbreak and severe thunderstorms were expected to rumble over parts of the lower Mississippi Valley into the mid-South and the lower Ohio Valley later Wednesday into the evening, affecting western and middle Tennessee; Arkansas; western and central Kentucky; eastern Missouri; Illinois; northern Mississippi; Indiana; northern Louisiana; western Ohio; northeast Texas; and southern Lower Michigan.
But that storm system will then become stationary, leading to the possibility of more than 6 inches of rain into Thursday.
The weather service called it "a life-threatening, catastrophic, and potentially historic flash flood event."
The front will remain stalled into the weekend, and the event is forecast “to bring potentially historic amounts of rainfall, with some locations possibly seeing as much as 10 to 15 inches or rain through the weekend,” the weather service said.
It will be a long-duration, multiday event in which rounds of heavy rain with intense rainfall rates of 2 to 3 inches an hour will back-build over many of the same areas over four days. Once the heavy rain begins Wednesday night, it will continue on and off until Sunday.
More than 37 million people were under flood watches stretching from Texarkana, Texas, to Detroit and Ohio on Wednesday evening, according to a weather service map of alerts and advisories.
The weather service warned: “The forecast heavy rainfall in this event has a return interval of anywhere from 25 to 100 years. In other words a heavy rainfall event of this magnitude falling within 4 days is an event that happens once in a generation to once in a lifetime. Historic rainfall totals and impacts are possible.”
Communities are urged to prepare for the storm and “severe disruptions to daily life given the expected extreme rainfall and flood risk.”
Some areas of the Midwest and the Plains were already assessing tornado damage Wednesday evening.
The city of Owasso, Oklahoma, reported an 11-mile path of destruction that uprooted trees, ripped the roofs off homes and caused other damage.
The National Weather Service said Wednesday that its survey teams found damage consistent with a high-end EF1 tornado in the Owasso area, with winds estimated at 100 mph to 110 mph.