Responders are scrambling to rescue people trapped in rubble, overturned vehicles and flattened buildings
Among the most significant damage: Tornadoes or strong winds collapsed an occupied candle factory in Kentucky, an Amazon warehouse in western Illinois, and a nursing home in Arkansas, killing people at each site and leaving responders scrambling to rescue others.
The extent of destruction will not be known fully for hours, but video emerging from those three states alone — flattened buildings, overturned vehicles and workers scouring rubble for trapped people — speak of breathtaking damage in some areas.
“This will be one of the most significant, the most extensive disasters that Kentucky has faced,” Kentucky emergency management director Michael Dossett said, adding this was “one of the darkest days in the state’s history.”
Tornadoes also have been reported in parts of Missouri, Tennessee and Mississippi.
One of the most devastated sites is the southwestern Kentucky city of Mayfield, where a tornado hit a candle factory Friday night while about 110 people were inside, Beshear said.
“We believe we’ll lose at least dozens of those individuals,” the governor said.
Video from Mayfield showed what remained of the factory: a massive debris field, largely of twisted metal, several feet high.
First responders have pulled “many, many” people out of the rubble, some alive and some apparently dead, storm chaser Michael Gordon told CNN Saturday morning from the scene.
“It’s kind of hard to talk about. … They’re digging in that rubble by hand right now,” Gordon said.
“It’s changed the landscape … here in Mayfield,” Kentucky State Police Lt. Dean Patterson said. “We’re seeing (destruction) that none of us have ever seen before.”
Deaths in Illinois and Arkansas, officials say
Deaths also have been reported in Illinois and Arkansas.
At the collapsed Amazon warehouse in the Illinois city of Edwardsville outside St. Louis, at least two people were killed, and rescue attempts were underway Saturday, Police Chief Mike Fillback said.
Rescues were going slowly because hanging debris was posing dangers to responders, Fillback said.
Dozens of people were able to escape without serious injury, Fillback said.
“It’s devastating to see the amount of damage there and to know there were people inside when that happened,” Fillback told KMOV on Saturday morning. Police did not know how many people were in the building at the time of the collapse, Fillback said, nor how many people still were trapped inside.
In the northeastern Arkansas city of Monette, at least one person was dead after a tornado damaged a nursing home Friday, trapping others inside before being rescued. At least 20 were also injured at the facility, Mayor Bob Blankenship told CNN.
Another person was killed in nearby Leachville, when a woman was “in a Dollar General store when the storm hit and they could not get out,” Mississippi County Sheriff Dale Cook told CNN.
Also in Arkansas, Interstate 555 near the town of Trumann was closed because of overturned vehicles, Arkansas Emergency Management spokesperson LaTresha Woodruff said. State officials had been told the town’s fire department, EMS facility and a nursing home were damaged, Woodruff said.
Those parts of Arkansas — as well as Mayfield, Kentucky — are in a path of more than 200 miles, including slices of Missouri and Tennessee, that might have been produced by one long-track tornado, CNN meteorologists said.
If it was one tornado, that 200-mile path would be the longest traveled of any since 1925.
A train derailed near Madisonville, Kentucky, early Saturday morning as weather moved through the area, according to a CSX spokeswoman. There are no reported injuries to the crew.
In the community of Samburg in northwest Tennessee, multiple structured were damaged, according to officials. The town “is pretty well flattened,” Obion County Sheriff’s Office dispatcher Judy Faulkner told CNN.
Along with multiple tornadoes, the storms produced dozens of wind and hail reports as of early Saturday.
Setting off weather alerts Friday from Arkansas to Indiana, the severity of the storms is anticipated to diminish as Saturday continues, with the greatest threat during the early morning hours.
Much of the eastern US will be impacted by rain into Saturday evening. Isolated strong to severe thunderstorms may occur from the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys into the northern Gulf States, according to the Storm Prediction Center. Wind gusts, hail and an isolated tornado remain possible.
Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of Kentucky emergency management Director Michael Dossett.
CNN’s Claudia Dominguez, Derek Van Dam, Taylor Ward, Joe Sutton, Keith Allen, Haley Brink, Dave Alsup, Raja Razek and Amy Simonson contributed to this report.
