About 100 people fear death after a typhoon ravaged six U.S. states | Weather News

US President Joe Biden has vowed to help countries affected by the cyclone that destroyed homes, destroyed businesses and left at least 100 people dead.

Describing the storm as the “biggest hurricane” in history, Biden on Saturday approved an emergency announcement in the area most affected by Kentucky, where at least 22 people have been confirmed dead.

“It’s a pity,” Biden said. “And we still don’t know how many people have been lost and the total damage.”

He added, “I promise you, whatever it is – whatever it is – the government will find a way to provide it.”

Strong twists, which weather forecasters say are unusual in the winter months, destroyed a candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, demolished an old nursing home in Arkansas, and killed at least six workers at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said the hurricane collection was the worst in the history of the state. He said about 40 workers were rescued from a candle factory inside which housed about 110 people when it became a garbage dump.

It would be “miraculous” to find anyone alive under the rubble, Beshear said.

“This devastation is no different from anything I have seen in my life and I find it difficult to describe it,” Beshear told a news conference. “It is possible that more than 100 people have been lost here in Kentucky.”

Videotapes and pictures posted on television showed brick houses in the center of Mayfield smashed, parked cars almost covered with debris.

Mayfield Fire Chief Jeremy Creason, whose site was destroyed, said the candle factory had been reduced to “a pile of twisted metal and machinery” and respondents sometimes “had to crawl wounded to find victims”.

‘Pray for Us’

Another employee went on Facebook to ask for help.

“We are locked up, please, help us,” said the woman, her voice trembling, as her co-worker was heard moaning softly. “We are at the candle factory in Mayfield.… Please, all of you. Pray for us.”

The woman, Kyanna Parsons-Perez, was trapped under five feet (about 1.5 m) in debris for at least two hours until rescuers were able to free her.

In an interview with NBC’s Today program, he said it was “very dangerous” he had experienced. “I never thought I could do it at all.”

Missing from the candle factory is Janine Denise Johnson Williams, a 50-year-old mother of four whose relatives remained awake on Saturday.

“Christmastime is in its infancy and she works at the gift-making candlestick,” says her brother Darryl Williams. “Leaving the gift of life to make a gift. We didn’t hear anything, and I just couldn’t think of anything. But I expect the worst. ”

Timothy McDill stands near his storm-damaged home in Mayfield, Kentucky, Saturday, December 11, 2021. [Mark Humphrey/ AP]

Luke Schockley removes debris from a hurricane inside his mother-in-law’s home in Bowling Green, Kentucky., Saturday, December 11, 2021 [Michael Clubb/ AP]

The storm was triggered by several thunderstorms at night, including a supercell storm that created northeast Arkansas. The storm left Arkansas and Missouri for Tennessee and Kentucky.

Extreme heat and humidity made the environment extremely difficult at this time of year, said Victor Gensini, a professor of space and space sciences at the University of Northern Illinois.

“This is a big deal, if it doesn’t happen,” Gensini said.

If preliminary reports were confirmed, the storm could have reached as far as 250 kilometers (400km), he said, a route much longer than the strongest hurricane that had ever traveled, traveling about 220 kilometers (355 km) across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. in March 1925.

Biden told reporters he had asked the Environmental Protection Agency to identify the area where climate change could lead to the storm, and asked warning questions about the storm.

“What was the warning? And was it strong enough and obedient? “Biden said.

The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center said it had received 36 reports of typhoons in Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

Amazon’s stockpile is collapsing

In Edwardsville, Illinois, Chief Fire James Whiteford said at least six people had been killed when an Amazon warehouse collapsed. Forty-five people survived.

But Whiteford said authorities did not know if anyone was unaccounted for because workers were in the middle of a change that took place on Friday.

“It is a great tragedy for our Amazon family and our mission is to help our employees and friends,” Amazon spokesman Richard Rocha said in a statement.

The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which has been trying to organize workers at another Amazon site in Alabama, has criticized the company for keeping Illinois open areas in the event of an accident.

The site where the roof collapsed on Amazon.com’s distribution site a day after the hurricane devastated several U.S. states, in Edwardsville, Illinois, US, December 11, 2021. [Drone Base/ Reuters]

In Monette, Arkansas, one person was killed and five others were seriously injured when a typhoon slammed into a 90-bed nursing home.

“The walls and ceilings were torn apart,” NBC correspondent Jay Gray told Al Jazeera. The whole back half of the house is finished, leaving only the broken bricks, the curved metal, the broken glass. Such losses are occurring in all six regions at present. “

Commenting on the accident, Gray said many people are still scared.

He said: “My feelings for the survivors are simple. “It simply came to our notice then. This is not the time of year when we see storms.

This was due to the cold weather that coincided with the warm weather. Now, we are behind this, so the temperature is very low and you have a lot of families all over the place, not only considering how hot they are, but also where they will be staying longer. ”

The death toll also included four in Tennessee and two in Missouri.

As of Saturday afternoon, about 99,000 customers in Kentucky and more than 71,000 in Tennessee were powerless, according to PowerOutage.US, a page following the power outage.

Kentucky officials urged people not to leave the streets and donate blood, while respondents rushed to rescue survivors and count people in areas they lost contact with.

“We have guards patrolling the door and searching for people because there is no further connection with some of these people,” said Brigadier General Haldane Lamberton of the Kentucky National Guard.