May 11, 2008 11:04 am
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SENECA, Mo. (AP) — Crews combed farm fields Sunday looking for bodies and survivors of severe storms and tornadoes that struck southwest Missouri on Saturday, killing at least 14 people.
Susie Stonner, spokeswoman for the State Emergency Management Agency, said one person was killed in Jasper County, one was killed in Barry County, and 12 were reported killed in Newton County near the border with Oklahoma, where seven people died.
“We are finding more unfortunately,” Stonner said. “There may be one or two more.”
Stonner said crews were combing the storm-struck area, searching for victims and assessing damage.
“They’re going over the hard-hit area and turning over everything and looking,” Stonner said. “It’s hard to do in the dark.”
Jane Lant was sorting through the debris of her bridal shop about 10 miles north of Seneca on Sunday. A body wrapped in blue tarp lay next to the shop. Her husband’s feed store and a home across the road were also demolished.
“We were just so thankful on Saturday that we closed at 5, or we would have had people in here at 6 when it hit,” Lant said. “I feel so awful going through this rubble when they are out looking for bodies.”
Crews with dogs searched a field behind her shop.
One fatality was reported north of Purdy in Barry County after a tornado hit there, the National Weather Service said. In Jasper County, a 17-year-old girl died near Carthage after heavy winds knocked a tree onto a trailer, said Carthage Fire Capt. Tom Nixon.
The number of injuries across the area was not immediately available. But Keith Stammer, who is acting as spokesman for Newton County emergency operations, said 19 people were hospitalized. He did not know the extent of their injuries.
He said some of the injured were in cars that were blown off the road when the storm swept through the area.
The tornado near Seneca was reported shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday, and the one in Barry County about 20 minutes later, said Bill Davis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Springfield.
The straight line winds that hit in Jasper County came around the same time as the reported tornado in Barry County, Davis said.
The first tornado looks to have started near Chetopa, Kan., and crossed the state line east of Baxter Springs before dropping on the Missouri side in an area northeast of Seneca, according to the National Weather Service. The storm then traveled into Barry County.
“The storms developed over southeast Kansas and northeast Oklahoma,” said meteorologist Drew Albert, also of the weather service’s Springfield office. “The tornado that affected the Seneca area tracked pretty close to the Kansas and Oklahoma state lines. Then it tracked southeast in Missouri.
“It hit where the states all come together.”
Officials don’t know the extent of the damage to homes and businesses in Newton County, but Stammer said that in some portions of the storm-hit area “it looks like a bomb went off.”
“Some houses are entirely collapsed, some have walls torn down and some have roofs blown off,” he said.
The twister passed through rural parts of Newton County, missing more populated communities such as the county seat of Neosho. The swath of destruction stretched 12 miles from west to east across the county.
Stammer said search and rescue crews have made a first pass through the damaged areas and will start another more, detailed search Sunday morning.
Law enforcement agencies locked down the area late Saturday night to keep looters out and properties secured. Residents unable to go back to their homes sought refuge in two shelters that were opened in the county, Stammer said.
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Associated Press writers Roxana Hegeman in Seneca and Andale Gross in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.
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