OAN Staff Abril Elfi
11:45 AM – Saturday, March 15, 2025
At least 17 people have been killed amid destructive storms that have hit parts of Missouri, Texas and Arkansas overnight.
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According to officials, the most fatalities as of Saturday morning were in Missouri which resulted in at least 11 deaths.
They said that the deaths included a man who was killed after a tornado ripped apart his home.
“It was unrecognizable as a home. Just a debris field,” said Coroner Jim Akers of Butler County, describing the scene that confronted rescuers when they arrived. “The floor was upside down. We were walking on walls.”
As storms swept through Arkansas overnight, officials reported Saturday morning that 29 people were hurt in eight counties and three people died in Independence County.
“We have teams out surveying the damage from last night’s tornadoes and have first responders on the ground to assist,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-Ark.) said on X. “In the meantime, I just released $250,000 from our Disaster Recovery fund to provide resources for this operation for each of the impacted communities.”
Additionally, 238,792 residents have been left without power across five states — Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Texas and Arkansas, according to Poweroutage.us.
With tornado watches in place for eight states—Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio—millions of Americans across are on high alert for severe weather.
“A tornado outbreak appears imminent with the potential for multiple, intense to violent long-track tornadoes from mid-day through this evening,” according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
As the severe weather outbreak continues into Saturday, 23 tornadoes were reported overnight in four states: Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, and Mississippi. Damage was caused from Missouri to Wisconsin by winds that reached over 80 mph.
According to the Storm Prediction Center, a number of large tornadoes, some of which may be strong and long-track, are predicted, with Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Jackson, and Hattiesburg among the high-risk cities.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) has also issued a state of emergency.
On Saturday, the most significant tornado threat is expected to start in Louisiana and Mississippi in the late morning to early afternoon and move into Alabama in the late afternoon and evening. From there, it will move into the western Florida panhandle and into western Georgia until late Saturday night.
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