Tornadoes, Wildfires and Blinding Dust Sweep across US as Massive Storm Leaves at Least 35 Dead

Damage is seen inside of the Harmony Hills trailer park on March 15, 2025 in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. (Getty Images/AFP)
Damage is seen inside of the Harmony Hills trailer park on March 15, 2025 in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Tornadoes, Wildfires and Blinding Dust Sweep across US as Massive Storm Leaves at Least 35 Dead

Damage is seen inside of the Harmony Hills trailer park on March 15, 2025 in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. (Getty Images/AFP)
Damage is seen inside of the Harmony Hills trailer park on March 15, 2025 in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. (Getty Images/AFP)

Residents pounded by unusually vicious weather across parts of the US surveyed damage Sunday from violent tornadoes, high winds and blinding dust storms that decimated homes and other structures and left at least 35 people dead.

National Weather Service meteorologist Cody Snell said tornado watches remained in effect Sunday morning for portions of the Carolinas, east Georgia and northern Florida. He said the main threat would be damaging winds, but there is the possibility of more tornadoes.

"As we go through the day today, there still is the potential for severe weather from, say, the upper Ohio Valley and western Pennsylvania down through the rest of the mid-Atlantic and Southeast as we have this cold front that's still moving across the country, and it won't clear the East Coast until later on tonight," Snell said.

The dynamic storm from Friday through Sunday earned an unusual "high risk" designation from weather forecasters. Still, experts said it’s not unusual to see such weather extremes in March.

At least three people were killed in central Alabama when multiple tornados swept across the state. Among those killed was an 82-year-old woman who was in a manufactured home that was destroyed by a twister, Dallas County Sheriff Michael L. Granthum said Sunday.

In Troy, Alabama, parks officials said the recreation center where over 200 people had taken shelter would be closed due to damage it received from overnight storms. No one was injured.

"The Recreation Center has significant damage throughout the building," the parks department said. "We are thankful the Lord provided protection over our community, and over 200 guests at the Recreation Center storm shelter, on Saturday night."

Missouri resident Dakota Henderson said he and others rescuing trapped neighbors found five bodies scattered in the debris Friday night outside what remained of his aunt’s house in hard-hit Wayne County. Scattered twisters killed at least a dozen people in the state, authorities said.

"It was a very rough deal last night," Henderson said Saturday, not far from the splintered home from which he said they rescued his aunt through a window of the only room left standing. "It’s really disturbing for what happened to the people, the casualties last night."

Authorities were still sifting through massive tornado damage.

On Saturday, Coroner Jim Akers of Butler County described the "unrecognizable home" where one man was killed as "just a debris field."

"The floor was upside down," he said. "We were walking on walls."

In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves announced that six people died in three counties and three more were missing late Saturday.

Bailey Dillon, 24, and her fiance, Caleb Barnes, watched from their front porch in Tylertown as a massive twister struck an area about half a mile (0.8 kilometer) away near Paradise Ranch RV Park.

They drove over afterward to see if anyone needed help and recorded video of snapped trees, leveled buildings and overturned vehicles.

"The amount of damage was catastrophic," Dillon said. "It was a large amount of cabins, RVs, campers that were just flipped over. Everything was destroyed."

Paradise Ranch said via Facebook that all staff and guests were safe and accounted for, but Dillon said the damage extended beyond the RV park itself.

"Homes and everything were destroyed all around it," she said. "Schools and buildings are just completely gone."

In Arkansas, officials confirmed three deaths.

Dust storms spurred by the system's early high winds claimed almost a dozen lives on Friday. Eight people died in a Kansas highway pileup involving at least 50 vehicles, according to the state highway patrol. Authorities said three people also were killed in car crashes during a dust storm in Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle.

More than 130 fires were reported across Oklahoma and nearly 300 homes were damaged or destroyed, Gov. Kevin Stitt said Saturday.



Macron Speeds up Rafale Warplane Orders as France Invests in Nuclear Deterrence

France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)
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Macron Speeds up Rafale Warplane Orders as France Invests in Nuclear Deterrence

France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)

President Emmanuel Macron said France would order additional Rafale warplanes in the coming years and invest nearly 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) into one of its air bases to equip its squadrons with the latest nuclear missile technology.

Jolted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and US President Donald Trump's more confrontational stance towards traditional Western allies, European countries are hiking defense spending and seeking to reduce dependence on the United States.

Macron, who has initiated a doubling of the French defense budget over the course of his two mandates, has recently set an even higher target, saying the country should increase defense spending to 3-3.5% of economic output from the current 2%.

He has also offered to extend the protection of France's nuclear weapons, the so-called nuclear umbrella, to other European countries.

"We haven't waited for 2022 or the turning point we're seeing right now to discover that the world we live in is ever more dangerous, ever more uncertain, and that it implies to innovate, to bulk up and to become more autonomous," he said.

"I will announce in the coming weeks new investments to go further than what was done over the past seven years," he told soldiers at one of the country's historical air bases in Luxeuil, eastern France.

Macron said he had decided to turn the base, famed in military circles as the home of American volunteer pilots during World War One, into one of its most advanced bases in its nuclear deterrence program.

The base will host the latest Rafale S5 fighter jets, which will carry France's next-generation ASN4G hypersonic nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which are intended to be operational from 2035 onwards, French officials said.

The French air force will also receive additional Dassault-made Rafale warplanes, in part to replace the Mirage jets France has transferred to Ukraine, Macron said.

"We are going to increase and accelerate our orders for Rafales," he said.

French officials said the 1.5 billion euros were part of the already approved multi-year military spending plan. It remained unclear how France would finance a massive hike in military spending at a time it is trying to reduce its budget deficit.

Macron's speech comes on the day the German parliament approved a massive increase in military spending.