Tornadoes kill 3 in the Midwest, Plains as storm threat shifts east

By Briana Waxman, Chris Dolce, and CNN’s Hanna Park, Kate S. Petersen

(CNN) — An outbreak of tornadoes killed at least two people and left a path of destruction in Illinois and Indiana on Sunday after a tornado earlier in the day killed a person in Kansas.

Nearly three dozen tornado reports were logged by the Storm Prediction Center in Illinois and Indiana, as supercell thunderstorms roared across the region.

In Illinois, Sunday’s tornadoes piled onto what had already been a record-active year for them in the state. The 149 tornadoes recorded as of June 17 broke the state’s previous record high for a year of 142 set in 2024, Illinois State Climatologist Trent Ford said.

Sunday’s tornadoes were part of a more widespread outburst of severe thunderstorms with damaging winds across the Midwest and Plains that knocked out power to tens of thousands. A continuous path of wind damage from southwest Kansas into Oklahoma was caused by a long-lived and powerful thunderstorm cluster called a derecho, a preliminary report from the National Weather Service said.

And the threat isn’t over on Monday. Tornado chances are low, but the overall storm threat will shift east to cover many more people across the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.

Deadly tornadoes hit Illinois, Kansas

At least two people were killed Sunday in rural Jefferson County, Illinois, around 90 miles southeast of St. Louis, according to county Sheriff Jeff Bullard.

Both victims died in separate mobile homes that were destroyed about two to three miles apart, Bullard said. A third home was completely leveled and five other people were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Bullard said.

The storms damaged at least 20 homes in the county, Deputy Emergency Management Coordinator Keith Hertenstein said. Trees and power lines were knocked down, leaving some residents without electricity.

Earlier Sunday, one person was also found dead in Sedgwick County, Kansas, after a manufactured home was blown off its foundation by an EF2 tornado, the county said in a statement and the National Weather Service later confirmed.

Tornadoes also tore through southern Indiana. Around 30 homes were damaged in Gibson County, Sheriff Bruce Vanoven told CNN. Some were completely destroyed, including the house and barn at a farmstead that lost everything, he said.

The nearly 100-year-old Blythe Chapel in Owensville, Indiana, was also destroyed.

While Gibson County’s tornado siren system was activated, some sirens in Owensville and Princeton did not sound due to old age. Those are being replaced with new sirens, and the system is being updated so that it can be activated directly by the National Weather Service, according to Vanoven.

None of the areas where sirens malfunctioned had tornado damage, he said.

The storm tore through a retirement community in neighboring Warrick County, Sheriff Mike Wilder told CNN. Two roofs collapsed at the Park Place Apartments in the town of Newburgh, trapping a woman who had to be rescued by emergency officials, Wilder said. The woman and two others suffered minor injuries but refused treatment at the scene.

Also in Newburgh, a woman visiting her parents at a different apartment complex witnessed debris “flying everywhere” and watched from her car as a tornado ripped through a parking lot and pool.

“It was like, boom … 200 yards from my vehicle, as I sat there with my car in reverse, ready to pull off,” Ka’Lisha Puckett told CNN. She said firefighters knocked on her parents’ door at Bell Pointe Apartments to prepare them to evacuate because of damage to their roof.

Farther west, the derecho produced wind gusts over 80 mph when it first erupted Sunday evening in southwest Kansas. The storms then raked through western and central Oklahoma after midnight Monday morning with wind gusts topping 100 mph.

In El Reno, Oklahoma, six homes were damaged—three reduced to “piles of rubble” by the storms, city spokesperson Lyndsay Bayne told CNN. There were no reported injuries, and the city has secured hotel accommodations for three families that required shelter.

About 100 miles northwest, in Woodward County, Oklahoma, a BNSF train derailed just after midnight during a powerful thunderstorm. About a mile-long stretch of train cars were blown over, county Sheriff Keith Frutiger told CNN. He was unsure if the train was in motion when the incident occurred.

Some of the toppled cars had hazmat placards, but no leaks were reported, he said. Hazmat teams were called to help right those cars, according to Frutiger.

CNN has reached out to BNSF for more information.

Storm threat pushes East on Monday

The same storm system will flare up another round of potentially damaging storms in the East and South on Monday, although the risk of tornadoes is low.

Atlanta, Charlotte, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, are among the major cities in a Level 2 of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms. Damaging wind gusts that could down trees and knock out power in spots are the main threat.

Heavy rain could also trigger flash flooding and slow down travel from the Mid-Atlantic to the Southern Plains. The downpours will stay north of areas ravaged by floods along the Gulf Coast last week.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Amanda Musa and Karina Tsui contributed to this report.