Damage from the tornadoes that ripped through the Midwest overnight Friday (Dec. 10) is still being assessed, but the violent storms will go down in history as some of the deadliest and longest-lasting
Damage from the tornadoes that ripped through the Midwest overnight Friday (Dec.10) is still being assessed, but the violent storms will go down in history as some of the deadliest and longest-lasting, according to meteorologists. More than 30 tornadoes were reported across six states overnight — Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi and Tennessee — the National Weather Service tweeted, with one of those tornadoes (or perhaps a cluster) chiseling out a path of destruction about 250 miles (400 kilometers) long, The Washington Post reported. If that destructive storm was in fact a single entity, it will become the longest path of a single tornado in U.S. history, as well as the first so-called quad-tornado, meaning it swept through four states — northeast Arkansas, southeast Missouri, northwest Tennessee and western Kentucky, the Post said. In just Kentucky, the death toll could rise to more than 70, CNN reported. And tornadoes reportedly caused the collapse of several large buildings, including a Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory (where 110 people are thought to have been at work), an Amazon warehouse in western Illinois (where at least two died) and a nursing home in Arkansas, CNN said.
