LONDON, Ky. (AP) — Residents in Kentucky and Missouri sifted through damage in tornado-stricken neighborhoods and cleared debris Sunday after severe storms swept through parts of the Midwest and South and killed more than two dozen people.

Kentucky was hardest hit as a devastating tornado damaged hundreds of homes, tossed vehicles and left many homeless. At least 18 people were killed, most of them in southeastern Laurel County. Ten more people were critically injured with state leaders saying the death toll could still rise.

“We are hard at work this morning addressing the tragic damage and deaths caused by severe weather,” Gov. Andy Beshear posted on X Sunday morning. “We are securing emergency housing options and looking into sites for intermediate housing.”

The latest Kentucky storms were part of a weather system Friday that killed seven in Missouri and two in northern Virginia, authorities said. The system also spawned tornadoes in Wisconsin, brought punishing heat to Texas and temporarily enveloped parts of Illinois — including Chicago — in a pall of dust on an otherwise sunny day.

In London, Kentucky, Ryan VanNorstran huddled with his brother’s large dogs in a first-floor closet as the storm hit his brother’s home Friday in a neighborhood along Keavy Road where much of the destruction in the community of nearly 8,000 people was centered. VanNorstran was house-sitting.

He said he felt the house shake as he got in the closet. Then a door from another house crashed through a window. All the windows blew out of the house and his car was destroyed. Chunks of wood had punched through several parts of the roof but the house avoided catastrophic damage. When he stepped outside he heard “a lot of screaming.”

“I guess in the moment, I kind of realized there was nothing I could do. I’d never really felt that kind of power from just nature,” he said. “And so I was in there and I was just kind of thinking, it’s either gonna take me or it’s all gonna be all right.”

Survey teams were expected on the ground in Kentucky on Monday so the state can apply for federal disaster assistant, Beshear said.

Parts of two dozen state roads were closed, and some could take days to reopen, he said.

About 1,200 tornadoes strike the U.S. annually, and they have been reported in all 50 states over the years. Researchers found in 2018 that deadly tornadoes were happening less frequently in the traditional “Tornado Alley” of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas and more frequently in parts of the more densely populated and tree-filled mid-South.

In St. Louis, Mayor Cara Spencer said five people died, 38 were injured and more than 5,000 homes were affected.

“The devastation is truly heartbreaking,” she said at a news conference Saturday.

A tornado struck in Scott County, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) south of St. Louis, killing two people, injuring several others and destroying multiple homes, Sheriff Derick Wheetley wrote on social media.

The storms hit after the Trump administration massively cut staffing of National Weather Service offices, with outside experts worrying about how it would affect warnings in disasters such as tornadoes.

The office in Jackson, Kentucky, which was responsible for the area around London, Kentucky, had a March 2025 vacancy rate of 25%; the Louisville, Kentucky, weather service staff was down 29%; and the St. Louis office was down 16%, according to calculations by weather service employees obtained by The Associated Press. The Louisville office was also without a permanent boss, the meteorologist in charge, as of March, according to the staffing data.

Experts said any vacancy rate above 20% is a critical problem.

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See more photos from the severe storms in the South and Midwest here.

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Contributing were Associated Press writers Sophia Tareen in Chicago, Jennifer Peltz in New York, Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta, Mike Catalini in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, Juan Lozano in Houston, and Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland.

At least 25 people have perished in severe weather that swept across Missouri and Kentucky over the weekend, authorities said.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the number of weather-related fatalities — he attributed them to a single tornado initially believed to have touched down at EF3 strength overnight — had risen from 14 to 18 by late Saturday afternoon.

“It has taken far too many lives,” Beshear said. “Homes that there isn’t a single wall standing. Homes that have all four walls yet lost the person inside.”

The governor said 17 of the fatalities were in Laurel County and one was in Pulaski County. One of the deceased was a Laurel County firefighter, Beshear said.

Officials in Missouri reported seven weather-related fatalities since Friday, including five in St. Louis County and two in Scott County.

Beshear vowed that the state’s resources are being deployed to help Kentuckians affected by the severe weather. He said 10 people remained in critical condition after suffering weather-related injuries in Kentucky.

A spokesperson for St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, said the facilities received over 60 patients in total, with the children’s facility treating 15 and Barnes-Jewish seeing more than 50. Two of the patients at Children’s Hospital were in critical condition. All others have been discharged, the spokesperson said on Saturday.

Most of the patients at Barnes-Jewish have been discharged or will be soon, the spokesperson said.

St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer said the severe weather, including two reported tornadoes in the area on Friday, affected an estimated 5,000 buildings in the city.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement Saturday that she has spoken with the governors of Missouri, Kentucky and Illinois and offered them “federal resources and action for the deadly tornadoes and storms.”

“We discussed how while emergency management is best led by local authorities, we reinforced that DHS stands ready to take immediate action to offer resources and support,” Noem said.

The severe weather was the result of an east-moving system of unstable air set off by a clash of warmth to the south and west and a cooler front to the north, federal forecasters said.

The National Weather Service said 28 tornadoes were reported on Friday.

More than 63,000 utility customers in Missouri and 58,000 in Kentucky were without power on Saturday, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.

(LEX 18) — Severe storms seen across the Commonwealth Friday evening into early Saturday morning have left with it a trail of debris and damage.

See below the photos of the damage, including the aftermath of a tornado in Somerset, submitted to LEX 18,