NATIONAL STORM SUMMARY

APRIL 2008


1st-5th…Strong thunderstorms toppled trees, knocked out power and
damaged homes Friday across the South, while flooding in Kentucky
forced evacuations and left a 2-year-old girl dead. In Mississippi,
fast-moving storms unleashed possible tornadoes, heavy rain and some
hail. Power failures were reported in several communities, including
near downtown Vicksburg and in Jackson. Tate Moudy of Brandon had just
walked into the Southern States Utility Trailer Sales office on U.S.
Highway 49 in Richland after showing a trailer to a customer when
"there was a big bang from a transformer being knocked out and debris
started flying through the front door." The powerful storm overturned
18-wheeler trailers, ripped away part of the roof of the sales office
and twisted beams in the building, Moudy said. Employees and others
had to remain inside because power lines had fallen across vehicles
parked in the lot. The American Medical Response ambulance service,
which serves a number of counties in the Jackson area, handled at
least 20 storm-related injuries, company spokesman Jim Pollard said.
He said he had no immediate information on the nature of the injuries.
At least 90,000 customers of Entergy Mississippi lost power at some
point Friday, mostly in and around Jackson, said company spokesman
Checky Herrington. Charles Ware of Canton said he was in his car
outside a Home Depot when winds smashed the window of his vehicle and
tossed around shopping carts. "The whole thing was like being in a
silent movie," he told the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson. "Your adrenaline
is flowing so much you can see all this stuff but you don't hear
anything." Amid scattered damage in north Alabama, no injuries were
reported, but forecasters issued a string of severe thunderstorm and
tornado warnings through the evening. No touchdowns were confirmed.
School systems throughout the Birmingham area dismissed students ahead
of a wave of storms Friday. Falling trees struck several houses and a
nursing home in Cullman, and authorities ordered an evacuation of
everyone within a half-mile radius of a downtown area where a gas leak
was reported. Workers contained the leak but feared fuel had reached
the city's storm sewers. Power was out throughout town, and officials
urged the city's 14,000 residents to conserve water because the
treatment plant couldn't operate. "It came up on us so quickly.
Everything happened at once," said Leanne Collins, who works at City
Hall. In Colbert County, emergency management director Mike Melton
said power lines and trees were down in a wide area. "There's about a
four-mile path of damage," he said. Winds ripped off roofs in
Columbia, LA, and thousands of people lost
power in the northeastern part of the state. In Kentucky, rivers and
streams surged over their banks as rainfall reached a half-foot in
some areas. Two-year-old Kate Hearod died Friday after her mother
rounded a curve before dawn in western Kentucky, drove into high water
and lost control of her vehicle, state police said. In and near Little
Rock, AR, residents used chainsaws, backhoes and elbow grease to clean
up from its latest bout of bad weather - a tornado that swept through
Thursday night.
At the North Little Rock Airport, a single-engine Cessna lay on its
nose propeller against a fuel truck near the runway Friday. The winds
also tore into one metal-sided hangar and cut across the runway
heading northeast. Near Benton, southwest of Little Rock, a dozen
homes were destroyed at Hurricane Creek Mobile Home Park - one of them
by a fire that erupted when a felled tree caused a gas leak. Emergency
workers had trouble responding because downed power lines and trees
blocked the main road in. Benton police Capt. Roger Gaither said 70
trailers suffered some sort of damage.

6th-12th…An apparent tornado with winds of up to 70 mph moved through
West Texas early Thursday, tearing shingles from roofs, shattering
glass and flipping vehicles. Paramedics were dispatched throughout the
city, but San Angelo police didn't have a number of injured. The storm
pelted the city with quarter-sized hail just after midnight with winds
of up to 70 mph, said Hector Guerrero, a meteorologist with the
National Weather Service in San Angelo. The National Weather Service
received reports of cars and a tractor trailer flipped over. At least
one building downtown was damaged and power lines were down in some
areas, Guerrero said.
Shortly after, the storm system moved out of the area, Guerrero said.
San Angelo is about 110 miles southeast of Midland. Hours earlier, two
apparent tornados also moved through another section of West Texas,
and there were also reports of a tornado in Oklahoma, where one woman
died when her car skidded off the road in heavy rain. In Breckenridge,
125 miles west of Dallas, at least five homes were destroyed and minor
injuries were reported, police said. Robbie Dewberry, an administrator
at Stephens Memorial Hospital, said the hospital treated three people
for storm-related injuries. He said the hospital was operating on
emergency backup power. Crews with Oncor Electric Delivery were
surveying the extent of the damage in Breckenridge, where about 3,500
customers were without power, Oncor spokesman Neal Blanton said. KTVT-
TV of Dallas-Fort Worth showed footage of damage at the small airport
in the town. A twin-engine plane sat amid the crumpled sheet metal
that had been a hangar.
Several outbuildings were also damaged, but officials could not
immediately confirm that the damage was caused by a tornado, said
Jessica Schultz, a National Weather Service meteorologist. Another
possible tornado hit Palo Pinto County between Graford and Oran,
meteorologist Jennifer Dunn said. Officials said roofs had been blown
off a few homes and trees were down in Oran, about 80 miles west of
Dallas. In Oklahoma, meteorologist Andrew Taylor said there were two
reports of a tornado in Choctaw County in the southeastern part of the
state, although no damage was reported. Taylor said the reports could
have been about the same tornado. Flooding caused the Oklahoma
Department of Transportation to close five highways in the state, and
the National Weather Service issued flood warnings for several eastern
Oklahoma waterways. Heavy rain and flash flooding were also reported
in Arkansas. Entergy Arkansas said it opened spillway gates at the
Remmel Dam in Hot Spring County to release excess water from Lake
Catherine, about 50 miles southwest of Little Rock. In Polk County,
along the Oklahoma state line, U.S. 71 was covered with as much as a
foot of water, while state Route 375 had 6 inches of water on it, the
weather service said. Sheriff's officials said workers at the hospital
in Mena were putting sandbags in place to keep water out of the
emergency room. Meanwhile, a small tornado caused scattered damage in
southwest Michigan, authorities said. No injuries were reported, but
authorities said several horses were trapped inside a barn damaged by
the stormy weather early Wednesday.
Another round of severe weather raked the storm-weary South with rain,
hail and high winds Friday, damaging homes and injuring at least five
people in Tennessee and Kentucky. A mother and two children were hurt
when strong thunderstorms moved through southern Kentucky in the early
morning, knocking over their trailer near Bowling Green. Tara Duvall,
a spokeswoman for Warren County Emergency Management, said all three
were hospitalized. "Apparently, the trailer rolled twice and fell
apart," Duvall said. Charles Foster, who lives nearby, said he helped
pull one of the children from the wreckage. Homes were also reported
destroyed in Kentucky's Wayne county. In Tennessee's Lawrence County,
a possible tornado damaged 56 homes, felled trees and littered yards
with debris.
In northern Giles County, power lines were knocked down, a dozen homes
were damaged and three people were injured when trees fell on an
ambulance, emergency management officials said. Wind or rain damage
apparently caused a roof to collapse at an apartment complex in
Hoover, Ala., Friday evening, forcing the evacuation of about 20
units, said Mark Kelly of the Jefferson County Emergency Management
Agency. No injuries were reported. The damaging storms come in the
same week as heavy rains that flooded parts of West and Tennessee and
two months after tornadoes killed 33 people in the state. In northern
Wisconsin, schools closed, thousands lost power because of trees
falling on power lines and snow plows were back at work Friday as
blizzard-like conditions hit. Keith Kesler, Douglas County's emergency
management coordinator, said as
much as 9 inches of snow had fallen near Superior, with wind gusting
to
62 mph. "Tree limbs are flying through the air," he said. "It is a
little
unusual for April to get hit like this. Winter is winter. It is
getting
awfully long this year." The record for April snowfall in the area
near Duluth, Minn., occurred a year ago, when 12.1 inches fell April
7. In Missouri, where heavy rain fell Wednesday and Thursday,
authorities
reported the death of a 14-year-old boy in Shannon County. The boy,
Kenneth Davidson, was swept away by rushing water Thursday while
trying to cross a normally shallow arm of Loggers Lake, officials
said. Emergency crews later found his body tangled in roots. In
Oklahoma, which has been beset in recent days by tornadoes, severe
storms and flooding, Gov. Brad Henry declared a state of emergency on
Friday - the first step toward seeking federal assistance.

20th-26th…An intense low pressure system moved through the Central
Plains and into the Upper Midwest while strengthening considerably. A
precipitation shield formed ahead of the storm and produced heavy rain
and thunderstorms from Nebraska to Wisconsin, while also producing a
mixture of rain and snow in the Dakotas. There was at least one report
of a tornado in southern Iowa and several reports of hail from
northern Missouri through southern Wisconsin and Michigan. Farther to
the south, a thin line of thunderstorms formed along the storm's
associated cold front as it moved through the Plains towards the
Mississippi Valley. The severe weather threat continued into the late
afternoon from eastern Texas through southern Wisconsin.

27-30th…Three tornadoes destroyed homes, tossed cars and injured more
than 200 people as they carved Monday through central and southeastern
Virginia. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine declared a state of emergency for the
areas of southeastern Virginia struck by the twisters. The National
Weather Service confirmed that tornadoes struck Suffolk, Colonial
Heights and Brunswick County. Meteorologist Bryan Jackson described
Suffolk's as a "major tornado." Bob Spieldenner from the Virginia
Department of Emergency Management said at least 200 were injured in
Suffolk and 18 others were injured in Colonial Heights. Woodson said
the area around Sentara Obici Hospital and in the community of Driver
were hardest hit. The hospital was damaged but still able to treat
patients. In Driver, downed trees and power lines covered the streets.
A vending machine was tilted on its side, leaning up against a pile of
rubble that had been the general store in a small shopping district.
"It's just a bunch of broken power poles, telephone lines and sad
faces," said Richard Allbright, who works for a tree removal service
in Driver and had been out for hours trying to clear the roads.
Insulation, wiring and twisted metal hung from the front of a strip
mall in Suffolk that was stripped bare of its facing. Cars and SUVs in
the parking lot outside lay strewn about, some lying on top of others.
Sentara hospital spokesman Dale Gauding said about 60 injured people
were being treated there, and he expected most to be released. In
Colonial Heights south of Richmond, the storm overturned cars and
damaged buildings in the Southpark Mall area. Southside Regional
Medical Center treated one storm victim with minor injuries and was
poised to receive more, hospital spokeswoman Terry Tysinger said.
Property damage also was reported in Brunswick County, one of several
localities where the weather service had issued a tornado warning.
Sgt.
Michelle Cotten of the Virginia State Police said a twister destroyed
two homes. Trees and power lines were down, and some flooding was
reported. About 9,000 Dominion Virginia Power customers remained
without service Monday night, mostly in the Northern Neck.