Powerful storms that whipped up tornadoes killed four people in southern Michigan, including a 12-year-old boy, and two people in eastern Oklahoma on Friday, reducing homes to rubble and leaving a swath of damage.
In Michigan, a 12-year-old boy died after succumbing to weather-related injuries. The boy’s parents called 911 to report that they could not find their son as a tornado touched down in the area, and by the time first responders arrived, the parents were providing him with first aid.
Three people were killed and 12 were injured in the Union Lake area near Union City, Michigan, after an apparent tornado hit, according to the Branch County Sheriff’s Office. About 50 miles southwest, Cass County officials reported one death and several injuries after a tornado touched down.
A rating of EF-3 was given to a tornado in the area of Union Lake, with winds estimated to have been at least 150 mph. The Enhanced Fujita Scale, or EF scale, assigns a tornado a rating based on its estimated wind speeds and related damage.
Tornado sirens blared as Tyler Cramer pulled into work at Menards, a home improvement store in Three Rivers, Michigan. The clouds dropped, the wind picked up, and Cramer said he and his fellow employees took off for the store’s shelter area.
“As we’re running is right when it hits, the skylights start blowing out. You can watch all the doors come off the building,” Cramer told NBC News. “You can look down the aisle ways, and we just watched the garden center on the far side of the store basically just disappear.”
From the shelter area, Cramer, other employees and customers watched whole sections of the store collapse. Cramer said that the tornado’s entire wave of destruction felt like it lasted only 30 seconds. “It hit so quickly and was gone,” he said.
The tornado took down powerlines in Three Rivers, sent large pieces debris flying into trees, and totaled vehicles.
In Oklahoma, just south of Tulsa, a tornado in Beggs was blamed for the deaths of two people in a house, the Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office said.
The storms hit a broad section of the nation’s midsection, spurring tornado warnings and watches from Oklahoma to Iowa to Michigan. Fifteen preliminary tornadoes were reported Friday across Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas.
At least one tornado has been confirmed in southern Michigan, near Union City, on Friday, according to the National Weather Service, and there were reports of possible others.
Officials in Branch County, Michigan, said at a press conference they hope to complete ongoing recovery operations tonight. Tim Miner, Branch County Emergency Management Coordinator, said that the county launched multiple recovery assets, including drones and cadaver search.
The combination of a weather system that pulled moisture out of the Gulf and a warm front that moved north created the right conditions for a tornado in a state where they’re relatively rare, according to David Roth, a meteorologist at the weather service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. The system encountered much cooler air in the Great Lakes area.
Michigan gets an average of 15 tornadoes a year, which is much less than the 155 for Texas and 96 for Kansas, he said.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer posted on X that will declare a state of emergency for Branch, Cass and St. Joseph counties following the severe weather and said the state is coordinating resources for those affected.
Whitmer activated the state’s Emergency Operations Center Friday “to coordinate an all-hands-on-deck response to severe weather,” she said in a statement.
Severe weather stretches far beyond Michigan
A tornado cut around a 4-mile path of damage in Okmulgee County including Beggs, some 30 miles south of Tulsa, said Jeff Moore, the county’s emergency manager. Large trees were toppled and power outages were reported. Two people were killed and two others were taken to a hospital, officials said.
“We’re just getting everywhere as fast as we can, clearing roads as fast we can,” Moore said.
James Hall, a homeowner in Oklahoma said he was on his porch watching the storm roll in when he realized he had no other choice but to evacuate.
