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Fall twisters rip through Midwest



CORDELL, Oklahoma (CNN) -- Emergency crews Wednesday were surveying the damage left behind by a series of tornadoes that whisked across parts of the Midwest, scattering debris in their widespread, winding paths.

No fatalities were reported.

Nine people were hurt -- none seriously -- in Cordell, a town of 3,000 in southwest Oklahoma, according to Oklahoma Emergency Management spokeswoman Michelann Ooten.

Ooten said the tornadoes destroyed at least 150 homes, and shattered windows and ripped off roofs on other homes and businesses.

"There's a lot of damage. We simply have a lot of damage," she said.

Keli Tarp, a public affairs coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the National Weather Service received 23 reported tornado sightings for Nebraska and Oklahoma.

"We had a 22-minute lead time on the tornado that hit Cordell," she said. "That's a very good warning. People had plenty of time to seek shelters."

A section of this Polk, Nebraska, farmhouse wall is all that was left standing after a tornado hit on Tuesday.
A section of this Polk, Nebraska, farmhouse wall is all that was left standing after a tornado hit on Tuesday.  

Tarp said 10 Oklahoma counties had 26 tornado warnings on Tuesday.

Two states away, the sheriff's department in Merrick County, Nebraska, reported more than $1 million in damage to two farms, a post office, a city park, and several other homes and businesses as at least six tornadoes swept through eastern Nebraska on Tuesday night.

No injuries were reported in the county of 8,200.

Tarp said that while tornadoes are more common in the spring, the Plains often experience a "kind of second season in the fall."

"In 1998, Oklahoma had more tornadoes in October than in any other month," she said. "A tornado outbreak like this is unusual, but not completely unexpected."



 
 
 
 


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