The outbreak of tornadoes across the Midwest and South yesterday has taken the lives of at least 11 people, with many more injured. The massive tornado in Little Rock, Arkansas alone injured more than 600 people and caused widespread devastation.
Unrelenting tornadoes that tore through parts of the South and Midwest killed at least 11 people, collapsed the roof of a packed theater during a heavy metal concert in Illinois, and left small towns and big cities throughout the region bewildered Saturday by the damage.
Tornadoes touched down into the night, laying waste to homes and businesses and stripping bark and limbs off trees, as part of a sprawling storm system that also brought wildfires to the southern Plains and blizzard conditions to the Upper Midwest.
The dead included four in the small town of Wynne, Arkansas, Cross County Coroner Eli Long told KAIT-TV. Other deaths were reported in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi the Little Rock area. . .
In Belvidere, Illinois, a tornado collapsed the roof of the Apollo Theatre as 260 people attended a heavy metal concert, killing one person and injuring 28, five of them severely, officials said.
People rushed to lift the collapsed part of the ceiling and pull people out of the rubble, Gabrielle Lewellyn, who had just entered the theater, told WTVO-TV.
“They dragged someone out from the rubble, and I sat with him and I held his hand and I was (telling him) ‘It’s going to be OK.’ I didn’t really know much else what to do,” Lewellyn said. . . .
CNBC