“Could hear and feel the vibration”: killed at least 27, as violent storms tear through the central USA

At least 27 people were killed and dozens were injured than a number of violent storms and tornadoes tore through parts of the USA and left a trace of destruction. According to the AP Litt Kentucky news agency, with 18 confirmed deaths and 10 others the most in critical condition.Seventeen of deaths were reported in Laurel County, Südost -Kentucky, and one in the neighboring Pulaski County. The Pulaski victim, 39-year-old veteran of the fire brigade, Maj. Roger Leslie Leatherman, died while he reacted to emergency calls during the storm, reported ABC News.Governor Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency and described the Tornado as one of the worst disasters during his tenure. “You can't just see the destruction, you can feel it,” said Beshear during a press conference on Saturday. He warned that the number of fatalities could still increase and the national support for the affected region urged.The residents of terrorist scenes described in Kentucky's London when houses were flattened and miles scattered. Kayla Patterson was quoted by AP as her family had hidden in a bathtub when the storm roared “like a freight train”. Your house was spared, but many others around her were reduced to rubble.

Another resident, Chris Cromer, said that he got the first of two tornado warnings around 11:30 p.m. (local time), about half an hour before the tornado strokes. He and his wife grabbed their dog, jumped into their car and burst into the crawlspace in the house of a relative nearby because the couple's crawl space is small.“We could hear and feel the vibration of the tornado,” said Cromer. A piece of his roof was torn down and the windows were broken, but houses around his were destroyed.“It is one of these things that you see in the news in other areas and you feel bad for people – when it happens, it's just surreal,” he said. “It makes you grateful to really be alive.”The National Weather Service officially confirmed the Tornado, although the meteorologist Philomon Geertson said that the damage agreed. A preliminary number of federal forecasts cited by the New York Times showed that at least 26 tornados ended up in several states, with Kentucky and Indiana seeing the worst.Missouri also reported devastation, especially in St. Louis, where a confirmed EF-3 tornado with a wind hit on Friday with 140 miles per hour. Five people died in the city and 38 were injured, according to the mayor of St. Louis, Cara Spencer, who described it as the “worst storms” in the city's history.John Randle, a inhabitant, described how he and his girlfriend were in the St. Louis Art Museum during the storm and were pushed into the basement with about 150 other people.“You could see how the doors fly openly, tree branches fly by and people run,” said Randle, 19.According to ABC News, part of the hundred year old Christian church collapsed during the storm and killed the long -time church member Patricia Penelton. Three more were caught in the ruins before they were saved, as Rev Derrick Perkins told.Elsewhere in Missouri, two more deaths occurred in Scott County, while two people died in Virginia after trees fell on their vehicles.The storms also brought large hail and widespread power outages. Over 462,000 customers lost electricity in states from Michigan to Tennessee.The weather crisis presented the challenges in the national weather service. Several local offices had recently had a shortage of staff due to the recently of federal cuts. In Kentucky, where Tornado warnings were essential, the Louisville office was 29% in the staff and was missing from March a constant chief.In the further course of the clean -up work, the forecasters warn that more storms can hit parts of Texas, Oklahoma and the levels in the coming days.