12 People Have Died After Record Snows in the San Bernardino Mountains

At the Los Angeles Times, "12 have died since massive snowstorms cut off California mountain towns, official says."

And, at Red State, "Death Toll Climbs to 12 in San Bernardino Mountains, While Newsom's Focused on Walgreens Instead."

Massive Sinkhole Opens Up in Chatsworth as Heavy Rains Pound the Southland (VIDEO)

The Los Angeles Times has continuing rain and flood reporting here, "Southern California faces another day of punishing rains: ‘We are definitely not out of the woods yet’."

And at CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

'Life-Threatening' Flooding Feared in Northern California as Storms Cause Rivers to Swell (VIDEO)

At the Los Angeles Times, "A string of atmospheric rivers that has left more than 400,000 without power in California will be followed by two major episodes of heavy rain and mountain snow in the next several days, forecasters say."

And watch, at KCRA News 10 Sacramento, "Some Wilton residents choose not to evacuate ahead of strong storm," and "Here's a look at rainfall totals from Sunday night to Monday morning, levels at Arcade Creek."

Amber Lee's Wednesday Forecast

Ms. Amber's very pregnant!

And boy, it's a scorcher today. 

At CBS 2 Los Angeles:

WATCH: Olga Ospina's Monday Forecast

San Diego's ABC News 10 has disabled YouTube embed, which is no fun. I love to see the beauties on the front page of the blog.

Here's the lovely Ms. Olga, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

WATCH: Megan Parry's Monday Forecast

It's cooling down, finally.

Here's the lovely Ms. Megan: "ABC 10News Pinpoint Weather with Meteorologist Megan Parry."

Many of Hurricane Ian’s Victims Were Older Adults Who Drowned

I thought about this as soon as the first fatalities were announced. Were folks crushed to death by collapsing homes or building, or struck by debris rocketing through the air at 150mph? Not really, though there may have been some of that.

People drowned, especially older people.

At the New York Times, "The storm, Florida’s deadliest since 1935, has been linked to the deaths of at least 119 people in the state, many of them older residents who lived near the coast":

A 57-year-old woman in the Sarasota area developed hypothermia and died after her roof caved in and she became stuck in floodwaters. A 96-year-old man drowned after getting trapped under a parked car in Charlotte County. In Fort Myers Beach, the body of an 85-year-old woman was found in a tree several days after the storm.

After Hurricane Ian punched Florida last week, shredding beachfront towns and flooding large swaths of the state, the storm was blamed by state and county officials for at least 119 deaths, more than any other hurricane had caused in Florida since 1935. Officials in North Carolina linked four deaths there to the storm as well.

Though the circumstances of many of those deaths remained unclear, information released this week by state and local governments provided a distressing portrait of a hurricane that at times overwhelmed both residents and emergency responders.

At least 54 of the victims died by drowning, records showed. Nearly two-thirds of the dead were in two counties on Florida’s southwest coast, Charlotte and Lee, that faced monstrous storm surge and winds exceeding 150 miles an hour. And many of those who died were older. Of the 87 people for whom an age or approximate age has been released so far, 61 were at least 60 years old. Eighteen of them were in their 80s, and five were in their 90s.

A review of medical examiners’ accounts, law enforcement reports and 911 audio obtained through open-record requests, as well as interviews with relatives of those who died, revealed a chaotic, harrowing response to a storm whose path forecasters had struggled to pinpoint.

Calls poured into emergency dispatch centers by the thousands as the storm bore down. Residents who stayed put despite evacuation orders scrambled for safety as their homes filled with water or blew away. Some died when the power went out and they were no longer able to use oxygen machines.

The suicides of two men in their 70s who killed themselves after seeing the damage in Lee County are also included in the official count of storm-related deaths.

In Fort Myers Beach, Daymon Utterback, 54, decided to ride out Ian at home, as he had done in previous hurricanes, according to his uncle, Terry Goodman. Mr. Utterback, a machinist with a manufacturing company who was known for a sharp sense of humor, did not expect the storm to be very severe, his uncle said.

As storm surge flooded their house, Mr. Utterback’s fiancée stood on top of a grill to keep her head above water, according to a next-door neighbor, Steve Johnson. She survived the hurricane, but Mr. Utterback became trapped while trying to open a window, and drowned.

Mr. Johnson said he escaped the storm by trekking through chest-high water, against powerful winds. When he returned to his house the next day, after the floodwaters receded, he saw Mr. Utterback’s body. He put a towel over the body, he said.

“It was just so sad to see him there,” Mr. Johnson said.

Mr. Utterback was one of at least 53 people who died because of the storm in Lee County. In neighboring Charlotte County, the sheriff’s office said 24 deaths there had been linked to the storm, though only two of those had been reported to state officials as of Friday.

“Everyone, I know, tries to do the best they can,” said Mr. Goodman, adding that he did not blame anyone for what happened to his nephew. “It’s just — decisions that individuals make sometimes don’t work out the way they want them to,” he said.

Though Ian’s devastation was most severe in southwest Florida, the storm also caused flooding and dangerous travel conditions in other parts of the state and the region. Officials in 15 Florida counties each reported at least one storm-related death, including a 22-year-old man who died when his vehicle hit a fallen tree in Polk County, near the middle of the state, and an 85-year-old man who fell off a ladder while putting up a tarp in Putnam County, in northeast Florida.

In New Smyrna Beach, on the Atlantic coast, Alice F. Argo kept calling and calling for help when the storm hit. At first, her husband, Jerry W. Argo, was refusing to go to a shelter, and the couple wanted help to get to safer ground across the street. As night fell, Ms. Argo’s calls for assistance grew more frequent and more urgent. Her husband, 67 years old and 250 pounds, had fallen and hit his head, and she could not lift him.

A Volusia County dispatcher told Ms. Argo that at least 400 people had called for help and that rescuers would get to the Argos when they could. “You’ve got to do your best to wait it out,” the dispatcher said, according to a 911 recording.

Ms. Argo, 72, was insistent.

“Well, hurry up!” she said. “If he dies, you’re going to be in trouble!”

The county was waiting for special vehicles that could drive through floodwaters, the dispatchers said. Police records show that Ms. Argo called for help a total of 10 times over the course of nearly 12 hours. The last time was at 10:38 p.m. By then, Mr. Argo was already dead.

“I feel if they had gotten there sooner, he might have survived,” said Lisa Mitchell, Ms. Argo’s daughter. “My mom said when they got there, they picked him out of water, put him on her coffee table, gave him CPR, shocked him and everything, and couldn’t revive him. Of course not — because he was there an hour and a half already.”

Andrew Gant, a spokesman for the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, said that the sheriff, Mike Chitwood, had ordered a review of how the case was handled. The county has six vehicles that can navigate floodwaters, and the National Guard later brought five more to the county.

“The review of the incident (and the entire storm) is just in its initial phases, but I believe one likely outcome is acquisition of more of the high-water trucks,” Mr. Gant said in an email...

Still more.

 

Hurricane Ian Makes Landfall in Southwest Florida with 'Catastrophic' Winds and Surge (VIDEO)

At the Miami Herald, "Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in Cayo Costa Florida at 3p.m. Wednesday. The storm was already “causing catastrophic storm surge, winds and flooding” in southwest Florida early Wednesday afternoon, the beginning of what promised to be a damaging path across the peninsula."

Californians Survive the Heatwave --- Barely

I was beginning to wonder when it was going to cool down. Phew, that was one hella heatwave. And Californians dodged a bullet, it turns out.

This article's from last week.

At the Los Angeles Times, "California averts widespread rolling blackouts as energy demands ease amid heat wave":

For nearly three hours Tuesday night, California officials warned of imminent rolling blackouts as the state’s electrical grid struggled to keep up with surging demand during a punishing heat wave.

The Golden State avoided widespread outages, though three Northern California cities experienced brief losses of power.

At 8 p.m., the California Independent System Operator downgraded its level 3 alert, the final step before calling for rolling blackouts, saying that “consumer conservation played a big part in protecting electric grid reliability.”

There were “no load sheds for the night,” the grid operator said; however, Alameda, Palo Alto and Healdsburg officials said they implemented short “rotating outages.”

In Alameda, municipal utility officials said at 6:20 p.m. that rotating outages were beginning. Power would be shut off to two circuits for one hour, according to Alameda Municipal Power.

Just before 7:30 p.m., utility officials in the Bay Area city said the second hour of power interruptions had been called off.

“No more rotating outages for tonight,” the utility said in a tweet. “Crews are working to get power restored to all customers shut off in the initial hour of outages.”

City officials in Healdsburg confirmed outages around 6:30 p.m.

“As directed by CAISO, rolling power outages to begin,” according to a Facebook post by the Sonoma County city.

Outages lasting about an hour per zone would cycle through each block until the energy shortage is over, the city officials said.

“Due to lower system loads, the need for rotating outages has ended,” city officials said at 8:10 p.m.

Palo Alto officials said around 7 p.m. that they had been cleared to restore power to about 1,700 customers after outages to meet Cal ISO’s “load-shedding requirements.” “We did not order rotating outages,” Anne Gonzales, an ISO spokesperson, said in an email to The Times on Tuesday night. “We held at [Energy Emergency Alert] 3 with no load shed, and [the alert] ended at 8 p.m.”

Gonzales did not respond to several requests for clarification by phone.

Shortly after 7 p.m., Cal ISO noted that peak grid demand had hit 52,061 megawatts, “a new all-time record.”

The alert did not affect Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers, as the utility operates its own grid and is separate from Cal ISO.

“We’re not suspecting any blackouts due to energy shortages and are not a part of any rolling blackouts [Cal ISO] has planned,” said Mia Rose Wong, a spokesperson for the municipal utility.

The DWP forecast Tuesday’s demand to be elevated but not enough to surpass available electrical generation and reserve capacity, Wong said.

Nevertheless, the utility advised its customers to conserve power and follow the state grid regulator’s guidance, including setting thermostats to at least 78 degrees and not using large appliances.

In addition to urging its customers to reduce energy use, the DWP makes excess power available to Cal ISO when available, Wong said, though it was not clear whether there was any excess power Tuesday night.

The heat wave is now expected to last through Friday, but the worst of it could be over for the southern half of the state — even as temperatures remain dangerously high.

For much of Northern California, the heat was expected to peak Tuesday, but temperatures are predicted to remain well above average through the week, according to the National Weather Service.

By late Tuesday afternoon, the weather service confirmed that downtown Sacramento had set an all-time temperature record. A preliminary high of 115 degrees broke the previous record of 114 set on July 17, 1925, meteorologists said. About an hour later, officials reported that the temperature had topped out at 116.

The state capital has seen a barrage of extremes over the last year, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and California climate fellow at the Nature Conservancy, said in a tweet Tuesday evening.

“First its longest dry spell on record, which ended with wettest day on record, followed by driest start to a calendar year on record, now followed by its hottest day on record,” Swain wrote.

In Hanford, the weather service office stated that as of 3 p.m., “all major weather reporting airports in the San Joaquin Valley have set daily record temperatures.”

Four cities in the Bay Area broke maximum temperature records tallied on any day of the year, according to the weather service.

San Jose’s temperature of 109 Tuesday beat the previous all-time high of 108, set Sept. 1, 2017.

Santa Rosa’s high of 115 broke the high of 113 set in 1913; Napa’s 114 broke the record of 113 set in 1961; and King City in Monterey County hit 116, breaking the record of 115 set in 2017.

Redwood City in San Mateo County hit 110, tying the record set in 1972...

Michael Shellenbarger

Take Liz's advice:

Read every word of this thread to understand exactly how the leftist politicians like Newsom are lying to you about the CA heat wave & electric vehicles. https://t.co/ncw0xZizbk

— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) September 7, 2022

As California Heat Wave Continues, Santa Monica Community College Loses Air Conditioning (VIDEO)

I've been teaching this week and it's been perfectly comfortable in my classroom. But there but the grace of God I go, it turns out. 

This heat wave is devilish. It's not just Santa Monica, of course. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "PG&E warns over 500,000 customers of possible rotating outages as California heat wave drags on." 

And at CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Leah Pezzetti's Fourth of July Forecast

It's going to be a little cooler than normal today, but beautiful and clear for tonight's July 4th fireworks.

Here's the lovely Ms. Leah, for ABC News 10 San Diego:

Record-Breaking Heat in Southern California (VIDEO)

It was 100 in Irvine today. 

I stayed in, lol.

At the Los Angeles Times, "100-degree temps on tap as heat wave comes to SoCal":

The punishing heat wave in Southern California will deliver triple-digit temperatures, elevate fire danger and increase the chance of heat-related illnesses Thursday and Friday, officials said.

A heat advisory in the Los Angeles area is in effect until 6 p.m. Friday for the coastal plains and valleys, the Santa Clarita Valley and the Santa Monica Mountains. Temperatures could soar at least 15 to 20 degrees above normal, reaching 100 degrees or higher in some areas.

Burbank, for example, is expected to climb to 100 degrees Thursday and Friday, according to Kristen Stewart, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. A normal high temperature for the area this week would be about 72 degrees.

Stewart said several temperature records may be broken Thursday and Friday in areas such as Long Beach, Burbank, downtown Los Angeles and LAX.

Anaheim on Wednesday broke its temperature record for the day at 96 degrees — 5 degrees higher than the previous April 6 record set in 2005, the weather service said.

A heat advisory is also in effect until 6 p.m. Friday across large swaths of San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange and San Diego counties, where similar conditions are expected.

Officials said heat-related illnesses are possible among the elderly, infants, outdoor workers and the homeless population, as well as those participating in outdoor activities. Residents should take extra precautions, seek shade and air conditioning and stay hydrated. Children and pets should never be left in cars...

Still more.

 

What’s Next for Aaron Rodgers?

 Yeah, what's next? I thought it was going to be the NFC divisional championship round.

But nah. Green Bay chocked. At home. In 3 degrees with the windchill factor. Jimmy Garopolo had never played a game under 32 degrees. Rodgers? He's won 34 under 32. 

I wasn't even watching that much in the second half, instead looking at Twitter on my phone. But then I saw that last 49ers drive and the winning field goal as time expired, and --- I couldn't believe it!

What a game, dang.

Watch, at Sports Illustrated, "49ers vs. Packers Divisional Round Highlights - NFL 2021."

At at the Wall Street Journal, "The 49ers Stunned the Packers. What’s Next for Aaron Rodgers?":

The 49ers Stunned the Packers. What’s Next for Aaron Rodgers? San Francisco’s 13-10 upset over Green Bay upended the NFL’s playoffs. It also reinvigorated the drama about the star quarterback’s future.

Aaron Rodgers spent much of 2021 in a standoff with the Green Bay Packers. When Rodgers finally arrived at training camp, wearing enormous sunglasses and a T-shirt featuring a character from “The Office,” he began a season unlike any quarterback in NFL history.

He was at the center of culture wars. He played as well or better than every other quarterback in football. Then he was booted from the playoffs after just one game.

The Packers were upset in the divisional round of the playoffs 13-10 by the San Francisco 49ers—a shocker that ousted the team that recorded the best record in the sport and the quarterback favored to win Most Valuable Player. On a freezing, snowy night in Wisconsin at Lambeau Field, the Packers scored on the opening possession and then were stymied for the rest of the game before a shocking finish that left them out in the cold.

The result doesn’t just upend the rest of the NFL playoffs, with the favorite now out of the picture. It also raises questions about Rodgers, the Packers and their future together after a year of drama.

“I’m going to take some time and have conversations with the folks around here,” Rodgers said afterward of his future. “It’s a little shocking for sure.”

Rodgers and the Packers seemed to be in control Saturday. They marched down the field for a touchdown on the opening possession. The 49ers went three-and-out on their first four possessions. When San Francisco got close to scoring on their fifth possession, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo threw an interception. The Packers had a field goal blocked at the end of the half to go into the break with a 7-0 lead.

Even as Rodgers continued to struggle to move the ball after that first series, the Packers appeared to be in control. When Green Bay extended its lead to 10-3 in the early fourth quarter, the 49ers still seemed lost offensively while Green Bay’s defense looked unbreakable in the frigid conditions. On a fourth-and-1 in Green Bay territory midway through the fourth quarter, the 49ers went for it—and got stuffed.

That’s when the script flipped and the tidal wave of an upset began building.

On the possession after Green Bay’s fourth-down stop, the 49ers blocked a punt—its second blocked kick of the game—and returned it for a touchdown. Suddenly, the game was tied 10-10.

The Packers went three-and-out on their ensuing possession. The 49ers got the ball back with 3:20 left in the game. That’s all they needed. The game ended as Robbie Gould’s 45-yard kick sailed through the uprights, clinching a playoff stunner on the iconic grounds in Green Bay.

The result sent the 49ers to the NFC Championship and plunged the Packers into another existential crisis after exiting the playoffs early yet again with Rodgers.

Rodgers entered this season as the reigning MVP. He’s also the favorite to win it this year after leading the Packers to the No. 1 seed in the NFC. But he has made little secret of his past concerns about Green Bay management and those same doubts seem destined to resurface after an unexpectedly early playoff loss.

Rodgers and the Packers were the central drama of the NFL offseason, with rumors swirling that the star quarterback wanted out of Green Bay. For a time there were doubts that Rodgers, who turned 38 in December, would come back.

When he did, he became the central drama of the regular season, as well. After initially saying he was “immunized” against Covid-19, he later missed a game after testing positive and being placed into protocols because he had not been vaccinated. He continued to comment about the coronavirus pandemic while provoking detractors by doing things like wearing a sweatshirt that had the words “cancel culture” crossed out.

Yet he also continued to play quarterback at an extraordinary level. He threw 37 touchdowns with just four interceptions. By any metric he ranked among the most effective and efficient quarterbacks in the league.

The Packers won the NFC, even though they lost a game in Rodgers’ absence after his positive Covid test, and received a first-round bye.

Rodgers posted solid numbers again against the 49ers. He finished the game 20-for-29 for 225 yards, though he took five sacks. And when the game was done, the Rodgers-led offense had only put up 10 points.

This marks yet another season when Rodgers and the Packers have fallen short of expectations. Rodgers has won one Super Bowl. Yet when he has won three MVPs—and appears to be on the verge of a fourth—it has raised questions of why the team has struggled to reach that plateau again.

“There are a lot of decisions to be made,” Rodgers said. “I don’t want to be part of a rebuild.”

“Certainly, we want him back here,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said afterward. “Certainly, I’m extremely disappointed that we couldn’t get over the hump.”...

Still more.

 

Drivers Stranded on I-95 Over 14 Hours (VIDEO)

In Virginia. 

At WTVR CBS 6 Richmond, Virginia:

And more at CNN, "Hundreds of drivers stranded on I-95 overnight after severe winter storm."

Alex Biston's Sunday Forecast

She's absolutely lovely.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Big California Storm Unleashes Flooding, Mudslides, and Rescues (VIDEO)

At LAT, "Rain prompts flood rescues, downs trees and forces evacuations":

As Tuesday’s powerful storm pounded Southern California, firefighters plucked a man from the Los Angeles River and searched for other possible victims, while emergency crews in Orange County rescued homeowners trapped by mudslides.

Around 7:50 a.m., fire dispatchers received a call from a man who had been swept into a small tributary of the L.A. River in Sylmar, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. Usually shallow, gentle streams, the river and its offshoots were transformed by the storm into torrents.

The man was carried about half a mile and into a tunnel that runs underground near Dronfield Avenue and Hubbard Street, said Nicholas Prange, spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. In the darkness, he managed to grab an object to stop himself from being swept further downstream, Prange said.

“He was still on the phone with dispatchers who were relaying the message on the radio,” Prange said.

Sounding the fire engine’s horn to alert the man to their location, the rescue team checked one maintenance hole after the next until finding him.

After he was pulled to safety, the man was treated him for scrapes, cuts, bruises and hypothermia, Prange said. How he was caught in the river was not immediately clear.

Earlier Tuesday morning, bystanders reported a rollover crash on North Main Street in Chinatown near the L.A. River, according to the fire department.

Within minutes, fire crews realized the vehicle had fallen into the swollen, fast-moving river and swept away, Prange said.

Firefighters took up positions at bridges downstream as a helicopter flew in search of the vehicle and possible occupants.

After two hours, crews spotted the vehicle pinned beneath the Washington Boulevard bridge near Soto Street in South Los Angeles, about four miles downstream, Prange said. No victims were found.

Shortly afterward, firefighters saw a second car being carried by the river’s suddenly powerful current. As the water continued to rise, both vehicles became pinned against the bridge’s footing. An hour later, a third vehicle, a gray Toyota Camry, ripped past the bridge and continued downstream into Long Beach, where it eventually came to rest, fully submerged, at the center of the river near Wardlow Road, said Capt. Jack Crabtree, spokesman for Long Beach fire.

Firefighters planned to let the waters subside before trying to pull the vehicles out of the river. It was unclear how the vehicles entered the river and whether they were operating or parked before being swept away.

The search for victims was continuing.

Elsewhere in Southern California, San Bernardino County authorities announced evacuation orders as mud and debris flows from fire-ravaged slopes threatened to damage dozens of homes and businesses in mountain and foothill communities including Oak Glen, Yucaipa, Forest Falls, and Nealey’s Corner.

There were no reports of injuries or property damage on Tuesday morning, though some roads were closed due to mudflow, said San Bernardino County fire spokesman Eric Sherwin...

 

Grim Scale of Destruction in Kentucky (VIDEO)

The governor says it'll take years to rebuild.

At NBC News, "‘I’ve got towns that are gone’: Kentucky struggles to count dead after tornadoes."

At at the New York Times, "In Kentucky, Tallying the Grim Scale of Destruction":

MAYFIELD, Ky. — Darryl Johnson didn’t know what his sister did at the Mayfield Consumer Products factory or why she worked nights; he knew only that her husband dropped her off on Friday evening and that they never heard from her again.

He stood in a gravel lot next to the giant ruin of metal and wood, which just days ago was the candle factory where his sister, Janine Johnson-Williams, had clocked in for her shift. The factory where he works, 45 miles up the road, shut down when the storms were approaching, Mr. Johnson said. He could not find anyone in Mayfield to tell him anything.

Late Sunday evening, Mr. Johnson finally got word. His sister was dead.

Sunday was a day of wrenching discoveries across the middle of the country, where an outbreak of tornadoes on Friday night, including one that traveled more than 220 catastrophic miles, left a deep scar of devastation. But as work crews dug through ruins and small-town coroners counted the dead on Sunday, there was at least a glimmer of hope that the death toll may not end up being as enormous as initially feared.

On Sunday evening, Troy Propes, the chief executive of Mayfield Consumer Products, which runs the candle factory that was demolished by the tornado, and which many dread may account for the largest number of deaths in the storm, said in an interview that only eight people had been confirmed dead at the factory and another six remained missing.

Bob Ferguson a company spokesman, said that of the roughly 110 workers who were on the late shift at the factory on Friday night, more than 90 employees had been accounted for.

Still, Gov. Andy Beshear told reporters on Sunday that the state had not confirmed those figures and said that search operations were still underway at the site.

“There have been, I think, multiple bodies,” Mr. Beshear said. “The wreckage is extensive.”

The death toll from the tornado swarm includes people who had been killed in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee, but the greatest loss of life was unquestionably in Kentucky, where Mr. Beshear said that at least four counties had tolls in the double digits. A dozen people were killed in Warren County, several of them children; in Muhlenberg County, there were 11 victims, all in the tiny town of Bremen. One was 4 months old.

“We’re still finding bodies,” Mr. Beshear said. “I mean, we’ve got cadaver dogs in towns that they shouldn’t have to be in.”

In Edwardsville, Ill., officials released the names of six people who were killed while working at an Amazon delivery depot that was hit by a tornado. “At this time, there are no additional reports of people missing,” the Edwardsville Police Department said in a statement on Sunday.

More than 50,000 customers were still without power in Kentucky on Sunday afternoon, and more than 150,000 were without power in Michigan, which was also affected by the sprawling storm. Mr. Beshear said that there were “thousands of people without homes” in Kentucky, though the sheer amount of devastation made precise figures, at this point, impossible to come by.

“I don’t think we’ll have seen damage at this scale, ever,” he said.

But even as the accounting of the storm was slowly being made, much was still dreadfully unknown.

In the town of Dawson Springs, where Mr. Beshear’s father was born and where his grandfather owned a funeral home, the list of the missing was eight pages long, single-spaced, the governor said in an interview on CNN.

On Sunday, slabs lay bare on the ground where houses once stood along the streets of Dawson Springs. Mattresses hung in trees and were strewn about the housing lots. Teams hunting for victims and survivors left spray-painted symbols on walls that remained standing.

Families bearing bruises and scrapes from Friday night walked among the wreckage, looking through the rubble for medicine, insurance information and food stamps.

Lacy Duke and her family were searching for two missing cats. In between calling out names, they described 22 seconds of deafening horror on Friday night as they huddled in a storm cellar, and an aftermath that was almost apocalyptic. Their house had folded like an accordion. A mobile home had disappeared. A teenage boy had injured his arm so badly it had to be amputated. The boy’s grandmother had been stuck under a car.

“This year’s been rough,” Ms. Duke said. She had been in a car accident, her son had been sick with Covid-19 and, at the auto part supplier where she had worked, everyone in her department had been laid off. “And then this happened.”

The storm system’s devastation exposed all along its path a late-night world of warehouses and factories on the outskirts of towns and cities, where people worked handling the seasonal traffic of packages or making scented candles for $8 to $12 an hour. A current of anger ran through the communities that were hit badly in the storm, as people demanded to know why so many were still on the job after alarms had sounded about the approaching danger.

At a Sunday morning church service in Granite City, Ill., when the pastor asked for prayers for the loved ones of the six who died in the Amazon warehouse, Paul Reagan, a retired steelworker, raised his hand...

Deadly Devastation: More Than 70 Killed in 'One of the Toughest' Tornado Events in Kentucky History (VIDEO)

Terrible.

Just biblical destruction and death. 

Watch the most dramatic images here. 

Story from the Lexington Herald-Leader, "‘One of the toughest nights in Kentucky history’: 70 or more feared dead in tornadoes":

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The “most severe tornado event in Kentucky’s history” is believed to have claimed the lives of at least 70 people, Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference in Graves County late Saturday morning.

He said the death toll “may in fact end up exceeding 100 before the day is done.”

Beshear said earlier Saturday that four likely tornadoes wreaked havoc on the state with one traveling for more than 200 miles in Western Kentucky, “something we have never seen before.”

More than a dozen Kentucky counties have reported damage from the storms, he said.

Deaths have been reported in multiple counties.

The hardest hit appears to be Graves County in far Western Kentucky, where Mayfield, the county seat, has been devastated, the governor said.

A collapsed roof at a Mayfield candle factory with about 110 people inside resulted in mass casualties and will account for the largest loss of life in the state as a result of the storms, he said.

As of just before noon, Beshear said about 40 of the 110 people inside the plant had been rescued. The last successful rescue there was at about 3:30 a.m., Beshear said, though he said “we still hope and pray that there’s some opportunity for others.”

Eleven people died in Muhlenberg County, Coroner Larry Vincent said. Other counties reporting deaths and injuries were Hopkins, Marshall, Warren, and Caldwell, Beshear said Saturday.

Up to 10 counties may have casualties, he said. Widespread damage was reported in Bowling Green. A Bowling Green police spokesman said Saturday morning that the number of people hurt or killed was not yet known, as first responders were still working to find people amid the wreckage.

The National Weather Service in Louisville said evidence of damage from an EF-3 tornado with estimated wind speeds of 150 mph had been found by its survey team in Bowling Green.

The weather service office in Paducah said in a tweet that crews were out doing storm damage surveys Saturday, but that it will take some time to get a rating on the intensity of the tornado that hit Mayfield.

More than 75,000 Kentucky customers remained without power as of 1:17 p.m. Saturday, according to the website PowerOutage.us.

Keep reading.  

Also, via Reuters, "Six Amazon workers killed after tornadoes reduce warehouse near St. Louis to rubble."

Oh, the humanity. 

More at Memeorandum. 

Leah Pezzetti's Monday Forecast

Here's the lovely Ms. Leah.

At ABC 10 News San Diego: