Another major tornado kills 15 in the midwest

The world might not have ended this weekend, but it’s damn sure ending!

At least 15 people died in Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma in the latest round of severe weather to strike the U.S. heartland, authorities said Wednesday, in what has already become a historic spring storm season.

The U.S. death toll in tornadoes this season stands at about 500, according to figures from the National Weather Service, making it the deadliest year since 1953, when 519 people were killed in twisters.

Ten of the latest deaths were in Oklahoma, three were in Arkansas and two were in Kansas, authorities said.

Seven people were killed in Canadian County, Oklahoma, Sheriff Randall Edwards said. Two of the dead were children, who were siblings. A third child in the same family is missing, and the mother is in critical condition, the sheriff said.

The national guard is helping search for the missing 3-year-old.

Two people were killed in Oklahoma’s Logan County and one was killed in Grady County, according to Cherokee Ballard with the state medical examiner’s office.

In Arkansas’ Franklin County, a tornado touched down shortly after midnight, killing at least two people, according to Tommy Jackson, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.

“We could see debris in the radar returns we were receiving, and that gave us a good indication the tornado was strong and large,” said Steve Piltz, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Tulsa, Oklahoma, adding the tornado was anywhere from a half-mile to a mile wide.

Its sad to see all these natural disasters claiming lives and ruining communities across the world. It makes it hard not believe that something in the environment is out of whack and we may need to reconsider how we operate to best maintain our way of life. Just sayin…

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