5 dead after tornado, flooding in US storms

Associated Press

CHARLESTON, W.Va.

The death toll rose to at least five Sunday after severe thunderstorms swept through the central U.S., spawning a tornado that flattened homes, gale force winds and widespread flooding from the Upper Midwest to Appalachia.

The system that stretched from Texas to the Canadian Maritime provinces had prompted several emergency declarations even before the dangerous storms arrived.

In southwestern Michigan, the body of a 48-year-old man was found floating in floodwaters Sunday in Kalamazoo, city Public Safety Lt. David Thomas said. Police were withholding the release of his name until notifying relatives.

Thomas said the death didn’t appear suspicious but the cause wasn’t known. Kalamazoo has been hard hit by flooding from last week’s heavy rains and melting snow.

In Kentucky, authorities said three people died. Two bodies were recovered from submerged vehicles in separate incidents Saturday.

A body was recovered from a vehicle that was in a ditch in in western Kentucky near Morganfield, the Henderson Fire Department said on its Facebook page.

And a male’s body was pulled from a vehicle in a creek near the south central Kentucky community of Franklin on Saturday, the Simpson County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

About 20 miles away, Dallas Jane Combs, 79, died after a suspected tornado destroyed her Adairville home earlier Saturday, the Logan County Sheriff’s Office told media outlets.

The fifth death was in northeast Arkansas, where an 83-year-old man was killed after high winds toppled a trailer home.