OKLAHOMA: A tornado touched down on Tuesday near Tulsa International Airport, injuring at least one person and damaging about a dozen homes, amid storms in the Southern Plains that brought a deluge of rain and powerful winds, closing an interstate and flipping campers at a raceway.

Storms could bring more tornadoes and flash flooding to parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma on Tuesday.

Storms on Monday evening flipped campers at Lucas Oil Speedway in Hickory County, injuring seven people, four of whom were taken to hospitals. The speedway’s grandstand also was destroyed, forcing cancellation of racing this weekend that was expected to draw about 3,000 campers. Details about injuries were not immediately available.

The tornado on Tuesday morning in Tulsa didn’t damage the airport, but passengers were moved into shelters for about 30 minutes, according to spokesman Andrew Pierini said. Many flights were cancelled or delayed because of the storms.

The twister touched down at about 6:30am about 4 miles from the airport.

“We had to rescue a man, he was pinned under a tree this morning,” said Tulsa Area Emergency Manage­ment spokeswoman Kim MacLeod. The man’s condition was not immediately known.

“We’ve had some other reports of damage to homes and trees down,” and damage assessments would continue throughout the day, MacLeod said.

Flooding was also an issue. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation shut down Interstate 40 in El Reno, about 25 miles west of Oklahoma City, because of high water. The National Weather Service says up to 5 inches (13 centimetres)

of rain had fallen since Monday.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2019