The death toll could reach 100, he said at an early morning news conference.
“Earlier this morning, around 5, we were pretty sure that we had lost more than 50 Kentuckians. Now I’m sure that number is over 70. It may, in fact, end up over 100 before end the day, “he added.
On Saturday, President Joe Biden ordered federal resources to be sent to the places in greatest need.
Some of the worst damage occurred in Mayfield, a small town of about 10,000 on the western tip of Kentucky., where the state meets Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas.
About 110 people were inside a candle factory in the area when the tornado broke through, knocking down the roof and causing many casualties, Beshear said.
Kyanna Parsons-Perez, who was inside the factory, said that the roof collapsed shortly after workers could hear and feel the cutting winds and lights began to flicker.
Videos and photos posted on social media, but not yet verified as authentic by Reuters, showed brick buildings in downtown Mayfield reduced to rubble, with parked cars nearly buried under bricks and rubble. The steeple of the Graves County Courthouse in Mayfield appeared to have been torn down, photos showed on Twitter.
In the early hours, more than 56,000 people in Kentucky were without power, Beshear said. It declared a state of emergency and was deploying dozens of national guards.
The genesis of the tornado outbreak was a series of nightly thunderstorms, including a supercell that formed in northeast Arkansas. That storm moved from Arkansas and Missouri to Tennessee and Kentucky.
“Unfortunately, it produced a couple of deadly tornadoes along the way. One of them may have been a long-haul tornado,” said Storm Prediction Center meteorologist Roger Edward. “The deadly tornado was part of that.”
In Illinois, police said there were “confirmed fatalities” after a roof partially collapsed at an Amazon.com Inc warehouse in the city of Edwardsville late Friday. Rescue teams were looking for people trapped in the rubble.
Shortly after midnight, weather caused a CSX freight train to derail in western KentuckyAlthough no crew member was injured, a company spokesman said.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center said it received 36 reports of tornadoes making landfall in Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas, and Mississippi.
Source From: Ambito
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