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)
TT
20

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.



Doctor Deported to Lebanon Had Photos ‘Sympathetic’ to Hezbollah on Phone, US Says

A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo
A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo
TT
20

Doctor Deported to Lebanon Had Photos ‘Sympathetic’ to Hezbollah on Phone, US Says

A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo
A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo

US authorities on Monday said they deported a Rhode Island doctor to Lebanon last week after discovering "sympathetic photos and videos" of the former longtime leader of Hezbollah and its fighters in her cell phone's deleted items folder.

Alawieh had also told agents that while in Lebanon she attended the funeral last month of Hezbollah's slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, whom she supported from a "religious perspective" as a Shiite.

The US Department of Justice provided those details as it sought to assure a federal judge in Boston that US Customs and Border Protection did not willfully disobey an order he issued on Friday that should have halted Dr. Rasha Alawieh's immediate removal.

The 34-year-old Lebanese citizen, who held an H-1B visa, was detained on Thursday at Logan International Airport in Boston after returning from a trip to Lebanon to see family. Her cousin then filed a lawsuit seeking to halt her deportation.

In its first public explanation for her removal, the Justice Department said Alawieh, a kidney specialist and assistant professor at Brown University, was denied re-entry to the United States based on what CBP found on her phone and statements she made during an airport interview.

"It's a purely religious thing," she said about the funeral, according to a transcript of that interview reviewed by Reuters. "He's a very big figure in our community. For me it's not political."

Western governments including the United States designate Hezbollah a terrorist group. The Lebanese armed group is part of the "Axis of Resistance", an alliance of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East that also includes the Palestinian movement Hamas, which sparked the Gaza war by attacking Israel almost a year ago on Oct. 7.

Based on those statements and the discovery of photos on her phone of Nasrallah and Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, the Justice Department said CBP concluded "her true intentions in the United States could not be determined."

Alawieh and a lawyer for her cousin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In Monday's filing, the Justice Department also defended CBP officials against claims by the cousin's legal team that Alawieh was flown out of the country on Friday evening in violation of an order issued by US District Judge Leo Sorokin that day.

The judge had issued an order barring Alawieh's removal from Massachusetts without 48 hours' notice. Yet she was put onto a flight to France that night and is now back in Lebanon.

The judge on Sunday had directed the government to address "serious allegations" that his order was willfully violated ahead of a hearing that had been scheduled for Monday.

That hearing was canceled on Monday at the request of the cousin's lone remaining attorney, after lawyers at the law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer representing her pro bono withdrew, citing "further diligence" about the quickly-moving case.

A lawyer with that firm said she had gone to the airport on Friday and shown a CBP officer a copy of Sorokin's order on her laptop before Alawieh's Air France flight departed, and another CBP official in a declaration on Monday said he was made aware that occurred before taking Alawieh to the boarding area.

But the Justice Department said the notification needed to be received through standard channels and be received by the agency's legal counsel for their review and guidance, which did not happen.

"CBP takes court orders seriously and strives to always abide by a court order," Justice Department attorneys wrote.

The Justice Department's filing was later sealed by Sorokin at the request of a lawyer for the cousin. Reuters reviewed it from a public terminal in the courthouse before access was further restricted.