A severe storm dropped a tornado onto a town close to Indianapolis, Indiana Tuesday damaging homes and leaving thousands without power.
National Weather Service meteorologists say the tornado hit the town of Plainfield, about 17 miles west of Indianapolis. Hendricks County Emergency Management says three homes were destroyed including one that had the roof caved in when a camper picked up by the twister dropped on it.
The storm then struck the southwest part of Indianapolis.
The city’s public safety director, Troy Riggs, said that emergency officials received reports of downed trees and damage to houses. Power lines were knocked down leaving thousands without power into the evening.
Several roads were also flooded as a result of heavy rains.
Doctors say tests on an Illinois man who contracted the deadly MERS virus from an Indiana man who was the United States’ first victim of the virus is not able to spread the disease to others.
“The second round of test results from oral and nasal swabs show the Illinois resident is not infectious,” Dr. LaMar Hasbrouck of the Illinois Department of Public Health. “What this means is, although the resident was infected at one time, if he sneezes or coughs, the virus is not in his nose or mouth and therefore cannot be spread to others.”
Health officials say the Illinois man likely contracted the virus from the Indiana patient during a 40-minute business meeting where the two shared nothing more than a single handshake. It is the first person-to-person transmission of the virus confirmed in the United States.
Dr. Hasbrouck said the virus is still so new that it’s not known all the ways the virus can be transmitted. He said that many other people also had contact with the Indiana patient and all of them have tested negative for MERS.
At least six people are confirmed dead after a Sunday outbreak of tornadoes across the Midwest.
The town of Washington, Illinois was devastated by a massive tornado that tore an 1/8th mile wide track through the entire town. Mayor Gary Manier said that up to 500 homes have been damaged or destroyed and that some neighborhoods are completely destroyed.
“How people survived is beyond me,” Manier said.
The tornadic storms are considered unusual for mid-November. Damaging winds and tornadoes were reported in 12 states: Michigan, Iowa, Illnois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York.
The storms moved so fast at times that weather forecasters were warning people to see shelter even before they could see a change in the weather.
The storm threatened the Chicago area forcing the game between the NFL’s Chicago Bears and Baltimore Ravens to be delayed for two hours as teams and spectators huddled under the stadium.
Large parts of the upper Midwest are without power as a massive snowstorm dumps up to a foot of snow in some areas. The storm seems to not be weakening as it bears down on the east coast, putting cities like Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. in danger of outages.
Heavy, wet snow knocked out power across parts of Indiana that reported a significant increase in car accidents in places that received as little as two inches of the thick snow. Tippecanoe County, Indiana reported 25 accidents in the first 5 hours of the storm Tuesday. Continue reading →
Winter Storm “Q,” which has already dumped a layer of snow in Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California, moves with full force into the eastern Plains and Midwest on Thursday, where it could dump a foot and a half of snow in some areas. Continue reading →
Tornadoes ripped through four states on Tuesday night and Wednesday, killing at least two people, as an Arctic cold front clashed with warm air to produce severe weather over a wide swath of the nation. Continue reading →
Large parts of the upper Midwest are without power as a massive snowstorm dumps up to a foot of snow in some areas. The storm seems to not be weakening as it bears down on the east coast, putting cities like Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. in danger of outages.
Winter Storm “Q,” which has already dumped a layer of snow in Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California, moves with full force into the eastern Plains and Midwest on Thursday, where it could dump a foot and a half of snow in some areas.