5 Killed in Violent Storms
(Associated Press) – Emergency response crews, on Monday, searched through the twisted and torn wreckage, a result of recent tornadoes that splintered and ravaged the small communities in Arkansas and Texas, killing at least five people. The heavy rain caused a huge sinkhole to open up in Granbury, TX. The 40-foot-wide sinkhole swallowed the parking lot of a supermarket and damaged the water and sewer lines beneath.
According to meteorologist Greg Carbin, of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, preliminary reports indicate 20 to 25 tornadoes formed Sunday in South Dakota, Iowa, Oklahoma and Texas. The same storm system dumped 11 inches of rain in some places and caused widespread flooding.
Perhaps one of the more tragic stories to come from the storms, is that of Michael and Melissa Mooneyhan, both in their late twenties, who were killed trying to protect their daughter when the couples’ trailer flipped over during the storm’s chaos. The two had met when they were just teenagers, both attending different high schools, and they married in April 2004, before they had even graduated. Their little girl did survive however, and the 18-month-old was taken to a local hospital and released later, to relatives of her parents.
For a majority of the day, there were eight people still unaccounted for in Van, Texas, which is about 70 miles southeast of Dallas. Luckily, by late Monday night, a Texas Department of Public Safety official stated that everyone on the missing list had been accounted for.