Updated May 26, 2024 at 18:41 PM ET

Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms ripped through parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas late Saturday evening and Sunday morning, leaving at least 15 people dead and causing widespread damage.

Around midday Sunday, some rescue crews in those states were still searching for missing people and digging out from the rubble, while residents in other states such as Kentucky and Tennessee were facing severe weather from the eastward-moving storms.

More than 400,000 residents throughout the region had lost power as of Sunday afternoon, according to the website poweroutage.us.

In north central Texas, Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington told the Associated Press that at least seven people were killed there, including two children ages 5 and 2.

In Arkansas, at least five people were reportedly killed in the storm. Benton County Judge Barry Moehring said one person had died there and multiple others were injured. “It’s been a difficult night for Benton County,” Moehring said.

Two people were killed in Marion County, one person died in Baxter County, and one person was killed in Boone County, local officials said.

“Bryan and I are praying for the communities impacted by last night’s storm and the families of the Arkansans we lost,” said Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management said two fatalities had been confirmed in the town of Pryor in Mayes County.

In Louisville, Ky., Mayor Craig Greenberg confirmed one death.

Severe thunderstorms spawned destructive tornadoes in several states

The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas throughout the Memorial Day weekend. The NWS office in Fort Worth said one of the storms was expected to contain “golf ball sized hail!”

Multiple tweets from the meteorological agency Saturday night urged residents to seek shelter immediately to protect themselves from the imminent threat of tornadoes.

By Sunday morning, images of the destruction were beginning to emerge, and public officials were sharing assessments of the casualties and damage.

Denton County, Texas, said in a Facebook post that a tornado there overturned vehicles, damaged homes, felled trees and downed power lines, and that a “number of individuals with injuries” were taken to local hospitals.

Photos from Benton County, Ark., showed heaps of rubble strewn across a road and battered buildings, including a Dollar Tree.

The Cooke County Office of Emergency Management said the storm “caused significant damage to numerous homes and businesses, including the Gateway AP Travel Center, which received major damage.” The office added that there were “numerous injuries of varying degrees.”

Other states are preparing for more bad weather

On Sunday afternoon, a major swath of the U.S was facing an “enhanced risk” of severe weather, including large parts of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, according to the National Weather Service.

Severe thunderstorm watches were in effect Sunday for parts of Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — with tornadoes and hail also possible.

“Additionally, heavy rain may lead to scattered instances of flash flooding with this initial burst of thunderstorms,” the weather service added. “By the afternoon hours another round of showers and thunderstorms are expected to develop along a cold front and impact similar regions, with the severe threat shifting further east across the Ohio Valley overnight.”

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If you are one of the lucky people in the most hotly contested presidential states, you are seeing a lot of advertising.

And with just over five months to go until Election Day and only about three-and-a-half months until people start early voting, the deluge is just beginning.

The election is being fought most acutely in seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Don’t take our word for it. Look at the actions of the campaigns since March 6, a day after Super Tuesday, the unofficial start to the general election this year:

Overall, $72.1 million has been spent on ads (TV, radio, satellite and digital) in that time in the presidential election, according to an NPR analysis of data from AdImpact, which tracks ad spending.

Almost 70% of that has been spent in the seven key states, especially in Pennsylvania, where $21.2 million has been spent. That means that almost $3 out of every $10 spent is going to one state.

Clearly, the campaigns see the Keystone state as, well, a keystone to this election.

Democrats are outspending Republicans by more than double — $49.2 million to $22.1 million.

Take a look at the spending state by state. In every state, President Biden and his allies are outspending former President Donald Trump and the groups boosting him. In some places, Trump hasn’t been on the air at all.

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Biden’s campaign is the biggest spender of the election so far at $34.2 million and counting. MAGA Inc., an outside group supporting Trump, is second, putting up almost $12 million. Trump’s campaign has spent nearly zilch on ads, just $70,521, as of Friday afternoon. 

Four dollars out of every $5 MAGA Inc. has spent has gone to Pennsylvania. The other $1 is mostly going to Georgia, where it’s spending $1.2 million. Trump and allies have not been on the air at all in four of the Lucky Seven: Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada or Wisconsin.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent and is getting double-digits in most national polls, has spent a little over $800,000 total on ads.

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The most-run ad of the campaign so far is this pro-Biden one about protecting the Affordable Care Act. It’s run 7,700 times in 17 days in all seven states.

It’s quite the turn, considering that Obamacare was the reason for Democrats getting “shellacked,” as former President Barack Obama put it, in the 2010 midterm elections.

But that reflects the change in public opinion. Back in January 2014, the ACA’s popularity hit its nadir — 53% unfavorable; just 37% had a favorable opinion of it, according to KFF’s tracking poll. But as of April, 62% have a favorable opinion of the law — the highest ever.

MAGA’s Inc.’s most-run ad is focused on immigration, but it has started to run this one most in the past week, which is focused on the economy (and makes unfounded claims about Biden’s mental faculties).

On the issues, abortion has by far been the focus of the most spending and total number of ads. Some $19 million has been spent on abortion messaging, with 50 different ads.

Next on the list (some ads reference more than one of these) are:

• immigration: $8.7 million
• crime: $8.4 million
• economy: $6.8 million
• inflation: $5.4 million
• Obamacare/Affordable Care Act: $5.2 million
• jobs: $1.8 million

Copyright 2024 NPR

OKLAHOMA CITY — A Texas sheriff says at least five people are dead after powerful storms tore through a rural community, obliterating homes and leaving thousands of people without power Sunday.

Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington told The Associated Press that the victims included three family members who were found in one home near Valley View, a rural community near the border with Oklahoma.

The destructive storms began Saturday night. Officials said a tornado north of Dallas overturned heavy recreational vehicles, shut down an interstate and caused extensive damage to a highway travel center where drivers had rushed to take shelter.

“Search and rescue is ongoing,” Sappington said Sunday morning. “But we’ve already started to do recovery of the deceased, as well. But we do have five confirmed (dead), but sadly, we think that that number is probably going to go up.”

Forecasters had issued tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings for parts of both states, as some heat records were broken during the day in South Texas and residents received triple-digit temperature warnings over the long holiday weekend.

A tornado crossed into northern Denton County in Texas late Saturday and overturned tractor-trailer trucks, stopping traffic on Interstate 35, Denton County Community Relations Director Dawn Cobb said in a statement.

The tornado was confirmed near Valley View, moving east at 40 mph (64 kph), prompting the National Weather Service to issue a tornado warning for northern Denton County, Cobb said.

The storm damaged homes, overturned motorhomes and knocked down power lines and trees throughout the area including points in Sanger, Pilot Point, Ray Roberts Lake and Isle du Bois State Park, Cobb said.

People who suffered injuries in the storm were transported to area hospitals by ground and air ambulances, but the number of injuries in the county was not immediately known, Cobb said, while a shelter was opened in Sanger.

The fire department in the city of Denton, about 37 miles (59.5 kilometers) north of Forth Worth, Texas, posted on X that emergency personnel were responding to a marina “for multiple victims, some reported trapped.”

The Claremore, Oklahoma, police announced on social media that the city about 28 miles (45 kilometers) east of Tulsa was “shut down” as a result of storm damage including downed power lines and trees and inaccessible roads.

Earlier Saturday night, the National Weather Service’s office in Norman, Oklahoma, said via the social platform X that the warning was for northern Noble and far southern Kay counties, an area located to the north of Oklahoma City. “If you are in the path of this storm take cover now!” it said.

A following post at 10:05 p.m. said storms had exited the area but warned of a storm moving across north Texas that could affect portions of south central Oklahoma.

At 10:24 p.m., the weather service office in Fort Worth posted a message warning residents in Era and Valley View they were in the direct path of a possible tornado and to immediately seek shelter. The Forth Worth office continued to post notices and shelter warnings tracking the movement of the storm through midnight and separately issued a severe thunderstorm warning with “golf ball sized hail” possible.

The weather service office in Tulsa, Oklahoma, warned on X of a dangerous storm moving across the northeast part of the state through 2 a.m. and issued severe thunderstorm notices for communities including Hugo, Boswell, Fort Towson, Grainola, Foraker and Herd.

The Norman office had compared conditions Saturday to “a gasoline-soaked brush pile.” Forecasters said any storms that form could explode with large hail, dangerous winds and tornadoes.

“There’s a small chance most of the matches are duds and we only see a few storms today. Still, that’s not a match I would want to play with. It only takes one storm to be impactful,” it said via Facebook.

Excessive heat, especially for May, was the danger in South Texas, where the heat index was forecast to approach 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius) in some spots during the weekend. Actual temperatures will be lower, although still in triple-digit territory, but the humidity will make it feel that much hotter.

The region is on the north end of a heat dome stretching from Mexico to South America, National Weather Service meteorologist Zack Taylor said.

Sunday looks like the hottest day with record highs for late May forecast for Austin, Brownsville, Dallas and San Antonio, Taylor said.

Brownsville and Harlingen near the Texas-Mexico border already set new records Saturday for the May 25 calendar date — 99 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) and 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), respectively — according to the weather service.

Red Flag fire warnings were also in place in West Texas, all of New Mexico and parts of Oklahoma, Arizona and Colorado. Humidity was very low, under 10%, and wind gusts of up to 60 mph (97 kph) were recorded.

“We’ve got very dry air, warm temperatures and strong winds creating a high fire danger over a wide area … that can lead to rapidly spreading or uncontrollable fires,” Taylor said.

Meanwhile, several inches of snow fell Friday into early Saturday in Rolla, North Dakota, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the Canadian border.

April and May have been a busy month for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest. Climate change is heightening the severity of storms around the world.

April saw the United States’ second-highest number of tornadoes on record. So far for 2024, the country is already 25% ahead of the average number of twisters, according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman.

Iowa was hit hard this week, when a deadly twister devastated Greenfield. And other storms brought flooding and wind damage elsewhere in the state.

The storm system causing the severe weather was expected to move east as the Memorial Day weekend continues, bringing rain that could delay the Indianapolis 500 auto race Sunday in Indiana and more severe storms in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky.

The risk of severe weather moves into North Carolina and Virginia on Monday, forecasters said.

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