TORNADOES, HEAVY RAIN SWEEP AREA; CREEKS OVERFLOW BANKS IN SOME AREAS, STREETS FLOOD

A series of thunderstorms swept across Southeast Missouri and Southwest Illinois Thursday night, bringing heavy rain, hail and a number of unconfirmed tornado sightings.

The National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky., received numerous reports of tornadoes from Stoddard, New Madrid and Scott counties in Missouri and Union County in Illinois.

Jim Keysor, a weather service spokesman, said there were no confirmed reports of tornado damage Thursday night.

"We'll know more in the morning when we can get some spotters out to check those areas," he said.

Hail ranging in size from three-quarters to one inch in diameter was reported throughout the region stretching from Cape Girardeau south to the Bootheel.

Keysor said flash flooding was also a problem in some areas. Just before 8 p.m., the weather service issued a flood warning for Cape Girardeau, Scott and Stoddard counties effective until 4:30 a.m. today. Heavy rain fell late into the night, causing many intersections in Cape Girardeau to flood and sending creeks in rural areas out of their banks, some onto roads.

Over 3 inches of rain had fallen in Cape Girardeau by 10 p.m.

"It's just been a train effect of numerous storms moving up out of Arkansas," Keysor said.

Temporary power outages were reported throughout the region.

About 6,000 customers in Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area were without service at the peak of storm, AmerenUE district manager Doug Groesbeck said.

Crews went to work immediately and had restored power throughout the city by 9:30 p.m.

The bulk of those affected, approximately 4,400 homes, were in the northern part of town. A powerful lightning strike near Interstate 55 and Highway 61 between Cape Girardeau and Jackson caused the outage.

Many of the rest were in the downtown area where lightning struck a static wire on Water Street, causing power outages to 480 homes and businesses.

Power outages knocked out traffic signals all over Cape Girardeau, forcing police officers out in the storms to direct traffic.

The loss of traffic signals at I-55 and Highway 61 between Cape Girardeau and Jackson snarled highways already congested by the slick road conditions. There were numerous reports later in the night of cars being stalled in water.

The Cape Girardeau Police Department reported a number of minor accidents and cars that had slid off the roadway but no major incidents.

Flooding of city streets also proved a problem for motorists, according to a department spokesman.

Scott City police reported some minor flooding problems as well.

Neither flooding nor traffic signal outages were a problem in Jackson, police there said.

A spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol in Poplar Bluff reported road conditions throughout most of Southeast Missouri as fair with few accidents.

"Traffic has been pretty quiet tonight," he said. "That has been a blessing.

The same storm system spawned tornadoes and funnel clouds across Arkansas on Thursday, collapsing the front of a downtown grocery store and knocking over trees at the governor's mansion.

At least three people were killed and more than a dozen were injured statewide. Tens of thousands were without power.

Three people were hurt at the Harvest Foods store that was imploded in a matter of seconds.

"The lights flickered a couple times, then it went black," said Derrick Stallworth, who was on the soda pop and bottled water aisle when the storm hit. "I decided to hit the floor, then I saw the roof coming down."

He said he freed some of the 10 to 20 shoppers who were in the storm when the tornado hit. Firefighters searched for those he missed.

The store pharmacist was among the injured. Witnesses who were outside the store said it was hit by a tornado.

"It was a real one, in the sky and coming down. Black and white. So many different colors," said Michelle Johnson, who watched the storm roll in.

Trees were damaged at the Arkansas Governor's Mansion just south of downtown but the house was spared and Gov. Mike Huckabee and his family were not hurt, said Huckabee's spokesman Jim Harris.

Tornado warnings were issued for more than half of the state's 75 counties in an outbreak that forecasters had been talking about since Monday.

Searcy Schools Superintendent Tony Wood said a member of the school board was killed in the tornado at Center Hill, 45 miles northeast of Little Rock, when a twister struck the victim's home.

Another person was killed in a building at North Little Rock and a woman was killed when a tree fell on her car in the neighborhood south of the Harvest Foods, police said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.