At least 18 people are dead after a major storm system ripped through several states in the Midwest and the South bringing tornadoes and severe thunderstorms Friday and overnight.
Seven of the deaths are in McNairy County in southwestern Tennessee, according to the state’s Emergency Management Agency.
“We will be surveying damage from likely tornadoes that struck many of our Middle Tennessee counties overnight, including Wayne, Lewis, Marshall, Rutherford, Cannon, and Macon Counties,” The National Weather Service field office in Nashville said on Saturday. “Due to the widespread damage, it will take us several days to reach all these areas.”
The damage includes downed trees, power lines and “houses with heavy damage” in multiple counties, according to a list of storm reports collected by the agency.
Five of the deaths are in Cross and Pulaski counties in Arkansas, three are in Sullivan County, Indiana, one in Boone County, Illinois, one in Pontotac County, Mississippi and one in Madison County, Alabama, according to officials.
Wynne, a city in Arkansas’ northeastern Cross County where four people died, saw widespread damage from the storm system, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a tweet.
Central Arkansas also suffered “significant damage” Friday, Sanders said, after meteorologists said a tornado touched down in North Little Rock, pummeling buildings and leaving at least three people dead and dozens injured.
“Today has been a very hard day for the state of Arkansas,” Sanders said at a news conference on Friday. “But the goodness of this is that Arkansas and Arkansans are tough and we are resilient, and no matter what comes our way, we will get back up the next day and keep moving.”
Arkansas declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard on Friday afternoon. At a news conference Friday, Sanders said 100 guardsmen had been deployed across the state.
