Three potential tornadoes around Louisville; damaging storms roll across several states

Thousands of homes and businesses were without power Tuesday as severe weather roared through several states, causing at least one death and spawning possible tornadoes.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency after severe storms swept through the state Tuesday morning. Another round of storms Tuesday afternoon led to multiple tornado warnings in Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio.

One person was hurt and taken to a hospital after a tree came down on their house in Lexington, Mayor Linda Gorton told WLEX-TV. Homes were damaged and a tree crushed a University of Kentucky student’s car.

In Louisville on Tuesday night, Mayor Craig Greenberg reported storm damage in the nearby city of Prospect and throughout the county, but said no injuries had been reported. He said fire crews were checking on people street by street in the most impacted areas and that he had declared a county-wide state of emergency after three tornadoes were unofficially reported. Storm damage surveys will take place to confirm the tornadoes and their intensity.

The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado in northeast Tennessee on Tuesday. A funeral home and a house were damaged in the town of Sunbright, a town of about 500 people, said Matthew Brown, Morgan County’s 911 director. Power lines and trees were down, and some roads were closed, he said.

The utility company in Memphis, Tennessee, reported that about 40,000 homes and businesses lost power temporarily Tuesday morning after an electric substation was struck by lightning, which then affected two other substations.

Storms also swept through southwestern Indiana on Tuesday morning, toppling trees and causing power outages, leading several local school districts to cancel classes. More than 18,000 homes and businesses were without power shortly before noon Tuesday, including in Vanderburgh County, home to Evansville, Indiana’s third-largest city.

Storms in Oklahoma unleashed three suspected tornadoes and dumped heavy rain that was blamed for the death of a 46-year-old homeless woman in Tulsa who was sheltering inside a drainage pipe.

In West Virginia, about 140,000 customers were without electricity Tuesday afternoon. A storm blew off part of a vacant building’s roof in Charleston, littering the street with bricks and closing the roadway to traffic. Trees were uprooted and lay in roads, lawns and in some cases, on top of cars.

Severe weather was expected to move into New England on Wednesday night into Thursday, with forecasts of 12 to 18 inches of snow in parts of New Hampshire and Maine and lesser amounts in other areas, the National Weather Service said. Wind gusts could reach 50 mph in some places, bringing the possibility of power outages.


A tree is uprooted in Prospect, Ky. by storms on Tuesday.  (AP Photo Timothy Easley)