April 2: Homes were destroyed and thousands left without power after storms wreaked devastation in multiple states.
According to the Washington Post, there have been more than 60 reports of tornadoes.
States like Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, Alabama, and Mississippi have had deaths as a result of the weather.
A storm hit the town of Wynne, Arkansas, a community about 100 miles (170 kilometers) east of the state capital, Little Rock.
Ashley Macmillan said she, her husband and their children huddled with their dogs in a small bathroom when a tornado passed, “praying and saying goodbye because we thought we were dead.”
A falling tree severely damaged their home, but they were uninjured.
She told the AP news agency: “We could feel the house shaking, we could hear loud noises, dishes rattling. And then it calmed down.”
Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency in the state of Arkansas on Friday, with the national guard activated to help with recovery efforts.
He said he had spoken with President Joe Biden about the situation, who has promised federal aid.
As the storms continue to move east, hundreds of thousands of people find themselves without power in several states.
Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania are the most affected, according to the US website PowerOutage.
Storms on Friday also caused a theater roof to collapse at a heavy metal concert in Belvidere, Illinois, killing one person and injuring 28.
The deadly tornadoes come a week after a freak long-track tornado killed 26 people in Mississippi.
President Biden visited the state on Friday to pay his condolences.
In a bulletin, the Storm Prediction Center warned that some of the projected tornadoes could track the ground for long distances.
The Mississippi tornado last week traveled 59 miles (94 km) and lasted about an hour and 10 minutes, an unusually long period of time for a storm to sustain. It damaged some 2,000 houses, authorities said.
