IN KALAMAZOO, MICHAEL— During the weekend storm that hit the area, a tree fell on a van in Michigan and killed three children. The storm also killed an 84-year-old man in an Amish buggy in Indiana, officials said Monday.
At the same time, more possibly dangerous weather hit parts of the Southeast U.S.
Over the weekend, freezing rain and strong winds were too much for trees and power lines. Power was slowly being restored in Michigan, but poweroutage.us reported that 276,000 people were still without power by Monday afternoon. The number of outages in Indiana and Wisconsin had dropped to about 80,000.
A 2-year-old girl, her 4-year-old boy, and their cousin, an 11-year-old girl, were killed when a tree fell in Kalamazoo County. There were three more hurt people in the van on Sunday, about 130 miles (209 km) west of Detroit.
Police chief Richard Fuller told reporters, “The family could not have avoided this.” He also said that the tree hit the area where the kids were sitting in the car.
He said, “It was such a big tree that it went across two lanes of traffic and out the other side of the car for about 12 feet.”
At the time, there was a strong thunderstorm warning for the area. It was one of several in southern Michigan on Sunday.
At about the same time, cops say Lonnie Yoder was killed when an Amish buggy in Middlebury, Indiana, flipped over because of strong winds.
The northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan was still a mess on Monday. Freezing rain on Saturday had knocked down thousands of trees. People were told by police to stay off the roads. The Alpena News said it couldn’t put out a daily because, like the rest of Alpena County, it didn’t have power.
Five miles (8 kilometers) long, the Mackinac Bridge connects Michigan’s two peninsulas. It was closed because thick ice could fall from the bridge’s towers and cables and hit cars.
According to the Porter County sheriff’s office, heavy crosswinds may have flipped over a tractor-trailer in Valparaiso, Indiana, on Sunday afternoon, killing the driver at Pratt Industries. The 34-year-old Canadian man Jagbir Singh was discovered outside the customer area.
WSBT-TV said that a warehouse in Elkhart, Indiana, was damaged, but no one was hurt.
Authorities say winds in southwest Ohio on Sunday night knocked down a church steeple, damaged homes, and flipped over campers. There were no reports of accidents. The National Weather Service said there were at least four storms.
The weather service reported on the social network X that at least three tornadoes happened in Kentucky on Sunday. In north-central Kentucky’s Spencer County, one hit and tore the roof off at least one barn.
WSMV-TV reported that storm damage was seen in several Tennessee counties, such as Maury and Humphreys. Sheriff Chris Davis of Humphreys County said that damage was seen all over the county, and one house’s roof was torn off. The homeowners were stuck inside, but they were not hurt. On Monday, the National Weather Service said on Facebook that there were at least four tornadoes in middle Tennessee.
The National Weather Service said that on Monday, bands of thunderstorms with strong to severe wind gusts and maybe even a few tornadoes were moving across most of the Southeast. Five students were hurt slightly when a storm forced part of the roof of their school’s gym to collapse in Dothan, Alabama, according to news reports.
Flood watches have been put out for 11 states from Wednesday to Sunday. These states range from the northeast of Texas to the western edge of West Virginia and encompass Arkansas. The weather service said it “is not out of the question” that some places could get up to 30.5 centimeters of rain. It looks like this will be a big event with dangerous floods.
