A major nighttime tornado outbreak erupted across an area stretching from the South to the Midwest late Friday night and into the early-morning hours on Saturday. Tornadoes are feared to have killed more than 50 in Kentucky, the governor said, and police in Illinois confirmed multiple fatalities at an Amazon warehouse after a tornado struck, collapsing a wall the size of a football field and trapping workers. And in Arkansas, at least one person was reported dead after a nursing home sustained a direct hit from a tornado.
Officials believe at least one massive tornado traversed four states, including Kentucky.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency late Friday, calling the major tornado and resulting devastation the “most severe event in Kentucky history… The primary tornado was on the ground continuously for over 200 miles, something we have never seen before.”