Twisters pound 4 states, kill seven in Arkansas

DAMASCUS, Ark. – Violent storms unleashed tornadoes, high winds and hail in four central states and killed seven people in Arkansas, including a teenager who died when a tree fell into her bedroom as she slept.

The storms late Thursday and early Friday ripped off roofs and toppled train cars near Kansas City, Mo.; pelted parts of Oklahoma with hail; and knocked over tents at a popular open-air market in east Texas. Severe thunderstorms were moving into Kentucky and could make for a wet Kentucky Derby today.

Greg Carbin, a meteorologist for the national Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said as many as 25 tornadoes may have cut through stretches of Oklahoma, Arkansas, eastern Kansas and western Missouri.

Five of those killed were in two north-central Arkansas counties, Conway and Van Buren, that also saw fatalities from a devastating tornado Feb. 5.

Gov. Mike Beebe declared those counties and five others disaster areas.

Around the Van Buren County town of Damascus, deputies, firefighters and volunteers were going farm-to-farm to check on everyone.

Just north of town the wind knocked the roof off a new church that has yet to hold its first service. Members of a work crew ran inside the Southside Baptist Church after a neighbor warned them of the coming storm; they later exchanged soaked clothes for white choir robes.