KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - The Latest on severe storms affecting parts of the U.S. (all times local):
3:30 p.m.
The National Weather Service says extensive damage at an airport in suburban Kansas City was caused by straight-line winds, not a tornado.
The weather service says winds of 80 to 85 mph hit the Johnson County Executive Airport on Monday evening. The airport in Olathe, Kansas, opened Tuesday to limited air operations but it is still closed to the public.
Johnson County spokeswoman Sharon Watson says nine county hangars sustained damage, with one demolished. Three private hangars also were damaged. She says hangars can hold up to 14 planes but officials are still determining how many planes were damaged.
Watson says in nearby Leawood, about 46 homes sustained some damage, with a handful having major damage.
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2:50 p.m.
The National Weather Service says a tornado that hit Oak Grove, Missouri, was an EF3 with an estimated peak wind of 152 mph.
The tornado damaged 483 homes and 10 to 12 commercial buildings, making Oak Grove the hardest-hit of several communities in Missouri raked by storms Monday night and early Tuesday.
The weather service says a tornado that caused damage in and around another Missouri community, Smithville, was an EF2 with peak winds of 132 mph. The twister’s path was 18.7 miles long and 1,000 yards wide. It developed 3 miles north of Smithville and ended 3 miles northeast of Lathrop.
EF1 tornadoes, which have wind speeds of 86 mph to 110 mph, were reported in Lee’s Summit, Macks Creek and Wentzville, Missouri.
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2 p.m.
Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens has declared a state of emergency after storms carrying tornadoes, hail and strong winds caused damage across the state.
The governor’s declaration makes state emergency operations available to areas hit by Monday night’s storms.
Greitens also toured Oak Grove on Tuesday to view damage in the city, which was Missouri’s hardest-hit.
Emergency officials say 483 homes and 10 to 12 commercial buildings were damaged Monday night in Oak Grove, just east of Kansas City. Other severe damage was reported in Smithville, north of Kansas City, with scattered damage reported elsewhere.
The destructive weather was part of a larger storm system that dropped tornadoes and hail across the Midwest on Monday night and early Tuesday.
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12:15 p.m.
Mark Swartz and his wife, Jennifer, moved into their first home in Oak Grove, Missouri, last November. On Tuesday, a slab was all that was left of their three-bedroom, two-bath home with a two-car garage after a storm tore it apart.
Swartz told The Associated Press Tuesday that it was painful to lose everything but that he and his wife are grateful to be alive.
The couple was eating dinner at a restaurant when the storm hit Monday night, and they believe they would have been killed if they had been home because the house had no basement.
The couple wasn’t able to return to their neighborhood until Tuesday.
Emergency officials say 483 homes and 10 to 12 commercial buildings were damaged in Oak Grove, just east of Kansas City, during Monday night’s storms.
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This item has been corrected to show that Oak Grove is east of Kansas City, not north.
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10 a.m.
The police chief in Smithville, Missouri, says between 60 and 70 houses were damaged when strong storms swept through the town, with some completely destroyed.
Chief Jason Lockridge says Monday night’s storms left damage “well north of seven figures” in the town of around 9,000 residents about 25 miles north of Kansas City.
Many of the homes were seriously damaged but Lockridge said Tuesday it was too early to say how many were destroyed.
Lockridge says he and other emergency responders knew Monday night that Smithville was severely damaged but that the extent wasn’t clear until daylight Tuesday.
No serious injuries were reported in the Smithville area.
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9:30 a.m.
A storm system pummeled an executive airport in suburban Kansas City, destroying or damaging several hangars and flipping some airplanes onto their sides.
Trent Pittman is assistant director of community preparedness for Johnson County, Kansas.
Pittman says one hangar at the Johnson County Executive Airport in Olathe was destroyed and at least five more were damaged in the storm Monday night. He says the airport is closed while damage assessment and cleanup are underway.
Pittman says he doesn’t know how many aircraft were damaged or destroyed. The control tower appears to be OK. No injuries have been reported.
He says a dozen homes were damaged in the nearby suburb of Leawood, where trees and power lines are down, but no injuries have been reported.
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8:25 a.m.
Emergency officials in Oak Grove, Missouri, say nearly 500 homes and businesses sustained some damage after tornadoes and severe storms raked the area.
Sni Valley Fire Protection District Chief Carl Scarborough says 483 homes were damaged in Oak Grove during Monday night’s storms that struck the Kansas City area. Scarborough says 10 to 12 commercial buildings also were damaged.
At a briefing Tuesday morning, Scarborough said 12 people were treated for injuries by emergency crews, and three people were taken to hospitals. He says none of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening.
Oak Grove Mayor Jeremy Martin praised the work of emergency responders and said “it’s rather amazing” there were no serious injuries or deaths based on the extent of the damage in the area.
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6:25 a.m.
Forecasters say a massive, late-winter storm system spawned tornadoes, baseball-sized hail and damaging winds in an area stretching from Oklahoma to Wisconsin.
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, says it received 32 reports of tornadoes late Monday and early Tuesday in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Illinois. Powerful winds extended as far south as the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas, where a post office and church were damaged, and as far north as Wisconsin, where trees were downed.
Emergency management officials say about 10 to 15 injuries have been reported in Oak Grove, Missouri, about 25 miles east of Kansas City.
The storm system is losing steam as it moves out of the Midwest, but forecasters say parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama could see severe thunderstorms Tuesday.
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This item has been corrected to show that tornado reports were received in Illinois, not Indiana.
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2:25 a.m.
Crews plan to assess the damage Tuesday after the National Weather Service says at least two tornadoes touched down in Missouri.
Several homes were damaged or destroyed in the Kansas City area Monday night as a line of severe storms moved across the state.
Oak Grove Emergency Management Director Mark Sherwood says a tornado damaged about 20 homes in the town and 10 to 15 people suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
In Smithville, north of Kansas City, Police Chief Jason Lockridge says 20 to 25 homes were damaged. Local media reports also described damage to planes and hangars at the Johnson County Executive Airport in Olathe, Kansas.
The website for the utility company Kansas City Power & Light showed about 40,000 customers without power early Tuesday. That’s down from more than 100,000 late Monday night.
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