By Bruce Schreiner and Julio Cortez
Associated Press
A series of powerful storms swept over the central and southern U.S. over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, killing at least 22 people and leaving a wide trail of destroyed homes, businesses and power outages.
The caused deaths in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kentucky and were just north of an oppressive, earlyseason heat wave setting records from south Texas to Florida.
Forecasters said the severe weather could shift to the East Coast later Monday and warned millions of people outdoors for the holiday to watch the skies. A tornado watch was issued from North Carolina to Maryland.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who earlier declared a state of emergency, said at a Monday press conference that five people had died in his state. The fifth death was a 54-year-old man who had a heart attack while cutting fallen trees in Caldwell County in western Kentucky, the governor鈥檚 office said.
The death toll of 22 also included seven deaths in from a Saturday tornado that tore through a mobile home park, officials said, and eight deaths across Arkansas.
Two people died in Mayes County, Oklahoma, which is east of Tulsa, authorities said. The injured included guests at an outdoor wedding.
The latest community left with shattered homes and no power was the tiny Kentucky town of Charleston, which took a direct hit Sunday night from a tornado that the governor said appeared to be on the ground for 40 miles (64 kilometers).
鈥淚t鈥檚 a big mess,鈥� said Rob Linton, who lives in Charleston and is the fire chief of nearby Dawson Springs, hit by a tornado in 2021. 鈥淭rees down everywhere. Houses moved. Power lines are down. No utilities whatsoever 鈥� no water, no power.鈥�
Further east, some rural areas of Hopkins County hit by the 2021 tornado around the community of Barnsley were damaged again Sunday night, said county Emergency Management Director Nick Bailey.
鈥淭here were a lot of people that were just getting their lives put back together and then this,鈥� Bailey said. 鈥淎lmost the same spot, the same houses and everything.鈥�
Beshear has traveled to the area where several times for ceremonies where people who lost everything were given the keys to their new homes.
The visits came after a series of tornadoes on a terrifying night in December 2021 in Kentucky.
鈥淚t could have been much worse,鈥� Beshear said of the Memorial Day weekend storms. 鈥淭he people of Kentucky are very weather aware with everything we鈥檝e been through.鈥�
More than 400,000 customers across the eastern U.S. were Monday afternoon, including about 125,000 in Kentucky. Twelve states reported at least 10,000 outages earlier in the day, according to .
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The area on highest alert for severe weather Monday is a broad swath of the eastern U.S., from Alabama to New York.
President Joe Biden sent condolences to the families of people who died. He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency is on the ground conducting damage assessments and he has contacted governors to see what federal support they might need..
It鈥檚 been a grim month of tornadoes and severe weather in the nation鈥檚 midsection.
Tornadoes in Iowa last week left and dozens injured. Storms earlier this month. The severe thunderstorms and deadly twisters have spawned during a historically bad season for tornadoes, at a time when contributes to the severity of storms around the world. April had the on record in the country.
Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, said a persistent pattern of warm, moist air is to blame for the string of tornadoes over the past two months.
That warm moist air is at the northern edge of a heat dome bringing temperatures typically seen at the height of summer to late May.
The heat index 鈥� a combination of air temperature and humidity to indicate how the heat feels to the human body 鈥� neared triple digits in parts of south Texas on Monday. Extreme heat was also forecast for San Antonio and Dallas.
In Florida, Melbourne and Ft. Pierce set new daily record highs Monday. Both hit 98 F (36.7 C). Miami set a record high of 96 F (35.5 C) on Sunday.
For more information on recent tornado reports, see The Associated Press .