CANTON, Texas -- Severe storms including tornadoes swept through several small towns in east Texas, killing at least four people and injuring dozens more, and dumping a rare late-season blizzard in western Kansas on Sunday.
At least 10 more people were killed in several states, including Arkansas. Rushing water swept away a car, drowning a woman in Missouri; and a death was reported in Sunday morning storms that raked Mississippi.
A 2-year-old girl in Tennessee died after being struck by a heavy, metal soccer goal post that was blown over by high winds, the Metro Nashville Police Department posted on its Twitter page late Sunday.
More than 350 roads were closed across Missouri because of flooding Sunday and are expected to remain closed for several days. Interstate 44, which cuts a diagonal path across Missouri from the southwest corner to St. Louis, is closed near Hazelgreen, between Rolla and Lebanon. State officials said it would be at least a day before the highway reopened, though the Missouri Transportation Department said it's not likely to reopen until near the end of the week.
Interstate 70 in western Kansas was closed because crews were waiting for snow to subside. As of Sunday, it was falling at 3 to 4 inches an hour and being blown by 35 mph winds.
In Texas, search teams were going door to door Sunday after tornadoes the day before flattened homes, uprooted trees and flipped several pickups at a Dodge dealership in Canton.
"It is heartbreaking and upsetting to say the least," Canton Mayor Lou Ann Everett told reporters at a news conference Sunday morning.
The storms cut a path of destruction 35 miles long and 15 miles wide in Van Zandt County, Everett said. The largely rural area is about 50 miles east of Dallas.
The National Weather Service found evidence of four tornadoes with one twister possibly on the ground for 50 miles.
The first reports of tornadoes came about 4:45 p.m. Saturday, but emergency crews were hampered by continuing severe weather, said Judge Don Kirkpatrick, the chief executive for Van Zandt County.
The storms rolled through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Sunday with strong winds causing isolated pockets of damage.
Alexa Haik of Clinton, Miss., about 20 miles west of Jackson, heard the sirens Sunday morning and turned on the television to see a tornado warning. She rounded up her pets and hid in a hallway with her family, then was stunned to emerge and see downed trees in her neighborhood.
A trip up the road showed how isolated the worst of the storms were.
"I really thought when we got out of our neighborhood, there would be damage everywhere. But our little subdivision was the only one hit," Haik said.
An apparent tornado caused some damage in Flora, Miss., about 20 miles north of Jackson, according to Tom Lariviere of the Madison County Emergency Management Agency. He said there were no injuries, but the storm caused the roof of a water tower to be ripped off.
In Durant in central Mississippi, one person died in the storms. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency didn't give details.
Later Sunday the agency reported the death of a child from Rankin County, 20 miles east of Jackson.
The Rankin County sheriff's office reported that a 7-year-old boy had unplugged an electric golf cart, dropped the cord in the floodwaters on the ground and was shocked.
Near Clever in southwestern Missouri, a man tried to save his 72-year-old wife from floodwaters that swept away their vehicle Saturday, but her body was found when the water receded, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.
A second death from weekend flooding was announced Sunday by Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, but he did not release any details about the victim or the circumstances of the death.
Greitens said Sunday that he had activated the National Guard to help prepare for the flooding and fill sandbags. Several rivers are expected to crest near historic levels with the worst of the flooding in southern Missouri.
"These floods may well be deep and destructive," Greitens said.
Officials are watching the Meramec and Mississippi rivers closely as they approach their crests early this week, but flash flooding is possible across most of the state.
First responders performed 111 evacuations and 135 rescues across Missouri over the weekend.
The weather service estimates that between 6 inches and 10 inches of rain fell across southern Missouri between Friday morning and Sunday morning. More rain fell through the day Sunday.
A Section on 05/01/2017