Extreme weather in South, Midwest leaves at least 43 dead

The surveying continued into Sunday.

Garland resident Pat McMillian said the tornado left neighborhoods in darkness. At least three people were killed by the storm in Collin County, the sheriff’s office said.

Sharva Sanders, 42, and her boyfriend were driving home from a funeral near Garland, Texas as a tornado ripped along the highway, plucking her body from the vehicle, the Dallas Morning News reported. Homeowners spent the morning in the cold rain picking through their belongings.

The destruction in Garland was so overwhelming that Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins declared the city a disaster within mere minutes of seeing the toll firsthand. Pedro Barineu said that eight of the 11 deaths occurred there.

Sections of the Dallas suburbs are now under a 24-hour curfew as official assess the damage. No injuries were reported.

Some 150,000 homes across MI were without power in the wake of high winds that hit Christmas Eve.

Governor Robert Bentley declared a state of emergency to deal with the flooding just before tornadoes uprooted trees and tore off rooftops on Christmas Day. This covered Garland, Rockwall, Collin and Ellis counties.

The devastation in eastern Texas followed a string of weather related disasters in the central US. There were no fatalities, but the twister damaged three homes, local fire chief Charles Gordon told CNN.

Two soldiers found in the vehicle Saturday night had drowned. “They didn’t know if they were going to make it”. I can not express how serious the situation is. “We will rebuild and we will become stronger as a community”. Barineau said 600 homes and businesses were damaged. A number of residents of the RV park were injured and taken to hospitals. Leonard Wood, Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department said. Nearby roads had been shut due to debris and that the damage to the homes was likely extensive enough to render some “inhabitable”. “Be prayerful”, Taylor said.

“Shout out to this ice storm for not making me leave the house today”, said one Twitter user, @unoriginalemily.

As a result of the same storm system, 20 states from New Mexico to MI and Georgia had some type of weather watch or warning Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.

“A variety of unsafe weather conditions will continue across the middle of the country through Sunday”, it said.

Statewide, more than 6,800 power customers lacked electricity at 6 a.m. Monday.

Updates: We’re updating Sunday’s weather developments here. Alabama has been hit with storms and heavy rain since the 23rd, and the Weather Service issued flash flood warnings around the region two days later.

The game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Chicago Bulls was delayed Saturday because of reports of tornadoes.

The storms came as other countries struggled with extreme weather and stressed holiday infrastructure. American Airlines Center officials were working to get fans in the arena about two hours prior to game time, before gates were set to open. Blizzard warnings are also in effect in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and into western Oklahoma.

Hardest hit on Monday was the major hub of Chicago, where freezing rain and gusting winds grounded over 1,200 flights, according to FlightAware.

The National Weather Service said more snow was expected in the southern high plains, and heavy rains and thunderstorms in the Mississippi Valley.

Some roads still were closed in New Mexico, where Sunday’s storms dumped as much as 18 inches of snow on eastern parts of the state.