A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
At least three dozen people are dead after severe weather sparked tornadoes, dust storms, wildfires and heavy rainfall across the South and Midwest over the weekend.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The storms continued to rattle the east coast overnight but have largely moved offshore. Residents across the country are still taking stock of the damage.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Ryland Barton has been following this. So tell us what happened over the weekend.
RYLAND BARTON, BYLINE: Yeah, so this really volatile storm system affected a huge swath of the country that created a trail of destruction from Kansas and Oklahoma, down to Texas, and then over east to Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi. In the east side, on Friday and Saturday, the system dropped baseball-sized hail in some places. Produced dozens of deadly tornadoes. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves said that six people were killed in tornadoes there. Speaking on Sunday, he promised a quick response.
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TATE REEVES: Mississippians, in times like these, step up and do what is necessary to take care of our friends and our neighbors, and that makes me proud to be a Mississippian.
BARTON: Also, 12 people died in Missouri, where Governor Mike Kehoe said yesterday that hundreds of homes, schools and businesses were destroyed or severely damaged.
In Arkansas, the National Weather Service said that damage from two of the tornadoes there showed they were likely F4s. That's the second strongest class of tornadoes, with one of them estimated to have a peak wind of 170 miles an hour. The last time that happened on the same day in the state was 1997. First responders across the region are still working to clear debris, restore power to homes and eventually distribute supplies for recovery.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now, tell us about the high wind and wildfires that took place on the western side of the area affected by the storm.
BARTON: Right. So Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas, there were hurricane-force winds. They created dust storms and wildfires. On Friday, eight people died in a 71-vehicle pile up in Kansas. That was after a dust storm suddenly reduced visibility to near zero. That closed Interstate 70 for over 24 hours. Another three people were killed in dust storm-related crashes in Amarillo, in the Texas panhandle.
In Oklahoma, Governor Kevin Stitt said that high wind stoked more than 130 fires across the state, killing four and damaging or destroying nearly 400 homes. And in Texas, on Sunday, officials say there's more than 42,000 acres were burning from 36 different wildfires, including a nearly 10,000-acre wildfire near Fredericksburg in central Texas. The threat of fires is expected to continue there into the next week.
MARTÍNEZ: Wow, so that's - all of that's a lot. What does recovery look like?
BARTON: So the process is really just starting. President Trump said on his Truth Social account yesterday that he's monitoring the storm damage, and that he and First Lady Melania Trump are praying for everyone impacted. He promised to assist state and local officials in the recovery, and he said National Guard troops were already deployed to Arkansas, where the most powerful tornadoes took place. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders surveyed damage there Saturday.
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SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: Our goal is to help and aid the local folks on the ground. Take care of people. We'll worry about the paperwork later.
BARTON: This is just the beginning of tornado season, and more severe weather could be on its way in the next several weeks.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Ryland Barton. Ryland, thanks.
BARTON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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