Tornadoes in Texas kill at least 4 people

CANTON, Texas -- Tornadoes hit several small towns in East Texas, killing four people.

Search teams were going door to door Sunday after the tornadoes the day before flattened homes, uprooted trees and flipped several pickup trucks at a Dodge dealership in Canton.

"It is heartbreaking and upsetting, to say the least," Canton Mayor Lou Ann Everett said 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 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.

"We'd be out there working and get a report of another tornado on the ground," he said.

Three people also were killed by flooding and winds in Arkansas, with officials saying two more people are missing.

Rushing water swept away a car, drowning a woman in Missouri, and a death was reported in Sunday morning storms that raked Mississippi.

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.

Interstate 70 in western Kansas was closed because crews were waiting for snow falling at 3 to 4 inches an hour, being blown by 35 mph winds, to subside.

An Arkansas volunteer fire department chief was killed while working during storms in north-central Arkansas, state police said.

Cove Creek/Pearson Fire Chief Doug Decker died shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday after being struck by a vehicle while checking water levels on Highway 25 near Quitman, about 40 miles north of Little Rock, trooper Liz Chapman said. It wasn't known whether he will be included as a storm-related death, she said.

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 Sunday.