ST. MARY, Mo. (AP) - Powerful tornadoes ripped across southern Missouri and southern Illinois during the night, destroying homes along a path of more than 20 miles and killing two people, officials said Sunday. Several other people were injured as the storm system pounded the central Mississippi Valley with hailstones as big as softballs, high wind and torrential rain.
It was not immediately clear how many tornadoes struck the area straddling the Mississippi River from Missouri into Illinois. The twisters were part of a long line of stormy weather that stretched from the southern Plains up the Ohio Valley.
The worst damage was along a rural stretch of Highway 61 near St. Mary in Perry County, about 80 miles south of St. Louis, emergency management director Jack Lakenan said.
A twister caught a pickup truck on the highway and hurled it beneath a roadside propane tank, killing both people in the vehicle, Lakenan said. The wreckage of the pickup was wedged beneath the tank.
Also near St. Mary, mobile homes were tossed and a brick ranch house was split in half. Several people were injured and two were taken to a hospital in St. Louis.
"Best we can figure, five or six homes were destroyed and another five or six were badly damaged," Lakenan said.
Across the Mississippi River in Illinois, a tornado damaged several homes and businesses in the small town of Fults, and injured one person, said meteorologist Ron Przybylinski.
One person was injured by flying glass in Bremen, Ill., authorities said.
The Missouri Highway Patrol said the tornado near St. Mary had wind of 113 mph to 206 mph. Softball-sized hail caused more damage and heavy rain prompted flash flood warnings in southern Missouri. The heaviest rainfall was 3 to 4 inches about 100 miles east of St. Louis in Illinois, said Jon Carney of the National Weather Service.
In Missouri's Jefferson County, just south of St. Louis, high wind struck a new subdivision, destroying seven homes. Five people were hurt, but the extent of their injuries was unclear, the National Weather Service said.
High wind tore the roof off a McDonald's restaurant in the tourist town of Branson.
A severe thunderstorm also hit eastern Kansas on Sunday morning, knocking out power lines and blowing out windows. The agency sounded tornado sirens as the storm ripped through Douglas County, but no twisters had been confirmed.
Elsewhere, storms scattered across the West gave Arizona a break from a prolonged dry spell, with Phoenix getting an inch of rain Saturday after a record 143 days without a drop. More than a foot of snow fell at higher elevations in northern and eastern Arizona.
Snow and sleet in the San Francisco area Saturday caused a 28-vehicle pile just north of the Golden Gate Bridge in which two people were killed.
As much as 1 1/2 feet of snow fell during the weekend in the mountains of California's eastern San Diego County, and one illegal immigrant died Saturday after getting caught in the freezing weather.
