One person died during a tornado, and two others — a mother and her 12-year-old son — died amid floodwaters as a severe storm system continues to hover from the South to the Northeast, authorities said.
In Spaulding, Oklahoma, a tornado killed one person, injured two others and destroyed two homes and several small structures Saturday night, Hughes County Emergency Management said in a statement Sunday.
In Moore, about 11 miles south of Oklahoma City, Erika Lott, 44, and her 12-year-old son Rivers Bond were found dead after two vehicles were stranded in floodwaters Saturday night, police said.
Rescuers pulled some of the occupants from the vehicles but were unable to save the woman and child, the Moore Police Department said in a statement.
“This was a historical weather event that impacted roads & caused dozens of high-water incidents across the city,” it said.
In a statement, Apple Creek Elementary School principal Rachel McNear said counselors and support staff would be available "to provide care and a safe space for students to talk, ask questions, or simply be comforted."
In Tulsa County, a search was underway late Sunday for an adult and a child believed missing after a vehicle they were in south of the community of Leonard was swept away by floodwaters, the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
Two of four people believed to be in the vehicle were rescued, it said. "We urge motorists to avoid driving through flood water," the sheriff's office said.
The rainmaker is a slow-moving system of roiling air, thunderstorms, large hail, flash floods and tornadoes that continued marching east Sunday, shifting the threat to 11 million people in Little Rock, Arkansas; St. Louis; Shreveport, Louisiana; Columbia, South Carolina; and Springfield, Illinois.
All modes of severe weather are possible, including 70 mph wind gusts, severe thunderstorms, quarter-size hail and a few tornadoes, especially across Missouri and Arkansas, according to the National Weather Service.
The threat of damaging winds and 111 mph and up (EF2) tornadoes will increase Sunday afternoon and night, forecasters said. The severe weather threat will gradually weaken overnight and diminish by Monday morning.
Nearly 130 severe weather reports came in Saturday, including more than a dozen unconfirmed reports of tornadoes in Oklahoma and Texas. Some of those reports were also from the mid-Atlantic region, where 60 mph to 80 mph wind gusts were reported in parts of Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
EF1 tornado damage (86 to 110 mph) was discovered in the Ada, Oklahoma, area in Pontotoc County, according to the National Weather Service field office in Norman. The Spaulding tornado was also an EF1, as was one in the community of Courtney, the office said.
The weather service Sunday also confirmed that a tornado touched down Saturday near Sterling City, Texas, and indicated a few others from Saturday most likely touched down in Water Valley and Weatherford, Texas, and Rubottom, Oklahoma.
The weather service office in St. Louis requested use of the federal Emergency Alert System to send warnings to people's cellphones in Boone and northeastern Moniteau counties. The warnings have been sent intermittently for parts of Missouri and Arkansas throughout Sunday afternoon as the system triggers thunderstorms and vortexes.
In Barry County, Missouri, three people and a dog survived Sunday after members of the Barry County Swiftwater Team pulled them from a vehicle stuck in floodwaters just before 6 a.m., the Cassville Fire Protection District said in a statement.
The threat of flooding continued through Sunday evening, with 10 million people under flood alerts from Texas to Illinois, including in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma, Springfield and St. Louis. Twenty-four-hour rainfall reports by Sunday morning include4.54 inches in metropolitan Oklahoma City and 8.18 inches in Nocona, Texas.
The heaviest rain was expected across Kansas, eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and southwestern Illinois. Rain rates could exceed 1 to 2 inches per hour, leading to an increased risk for flash flooding.
Over 50,000 utility customers remained without power Sunday, including more than 22,000 in West Virginia, more than 16,000 in Maryland, and more than 14,000 in Maine, according to PowerOutage.us.
Across northern New England and Florida, around 6 million people were under fire alerts Sunday afternoon.
In Florida, alerts stretched along the western Peninsula and included Tampa and Fort Myers. Wind gusts that are 15 to 20 mph were expected as relative humidity values ranged from 30 to 35%.
In the Northeast, gusty winds in regions of New Hampshire and Maine were greeted by dry air and vegetation, creating hazardous conditions for new or existing fires to spread.
