A tornado has heavily damaged a major Pfizer pharmaceutical plant in North Carolina — the latest in a string of extreme weather events plaguing the U.S. Torrential rains flooded communities in Kentucky while an area from California to South Florida endured more blistering heat on Wednesday. Pfizer reported no serious injuries but authorities said medicine was damaged after a tornado damaged the plant near Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Elsewhere, Phoenix, Arizona, broke an all-time record Wednesday morning for a warm low temperature of 97 degrees. And Kentucky braced under a forecast of more rain after flash floods prompted rescues from homes and vehicles in some waterlogged communities.
A tornado heavily damaged a major Pfizer pharmaceutical plant in North Carolina on Wednesday, while torrential rain flooded communities in Kentucky and an area from California to South Florida endured more scorching heat.
Pfizer confirmed that the large manufacturing complex was damaged by a twister that touched down shortly after midday near Rocky Mount, but said in an email that it had no reports of serious injuries. A later company statement said all employees were safely evacuated and accounted for.
Parts of roofs were ripped open atop its massive buildings. The Pfizer plant stores large quantities of medicine that were tossed about, said Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone.
“I’ve got reports of 50,000 pallets of medicine that are strewn across the facility and damaged through the rain and the wind,” Stone said.
The plant produces anesthesia and other drugs as well as nearly 25% of the sterile injectable medications Pfizer supplies to U.S. hospitals, the company said on its website. Erin Fox, senior pharmacy director at University of Utah Health, said the damage “will likely lead to long-term shortages while Pfizer works to either move production to other sites or rebuilds.”
The National Weather Service said in a tweet that the damage was consistent with an EF3 tornado with wind speeds up to 150 mph (240 kph).
The Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office, where part of Rocky Mount is located, said on Facebook that they had reports of three people injured in the tornado, and that two of them had life-threatening injuries.
A preliminary report from neighboring Nash County said 13 people were injured and 89 structures were damaged, WRAL-TV reported.
