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   SHAWNEE, OK (AP) - Hearing on the radio that a violent storm was approaching her rural Oklahoma neighborhood, Lindsay Carter took advantage of the advanced warning, gathered her belongings and fled. When she returned, there was little left of the community she called home.

   Several tornadoes struck parts of the nation's midsection Sunday, concentrating damage in central Oklahoma and Wichita, Kan. One person was killed near Shawnee, Okla., and 21 injuries were reported throughout the state.

   Victims and emergency responders might not get much of reprieve as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center was forecasting similar weather for Monday over much of the same area.

   The worst of the damage Sunday appeared to be at the Steelman Estates Mobile Home Park located amid gently rolling hills about 35 miles southeast of Oklahoma City.

   "It took a dead hit," resident James Hoke said. Emerging from a storm cellar where he sought refuge with his wife and two children, Hoke found that their mobile home had vanished. "Everything is gone."

   Hoke said he started trying to help neighbors and found his wife's father covered in rubble.

   "My father-in-law was buried under the house. We had to pull Sheetrock off of him," Hoke said.

   Forecasters had been warning of bad weather since last Wednesday and on Sunday said conditions had ripened for powerful tornadoes. Wall-to-wall broadcasts of storm information spread the word Sunday, leaving Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth grateful.

   "There was a possibility a lot more people could have been injured," Booth said. "This is the worst I've seen in Pottawatomie County in my 25 years of law enforcement."

   Carter had heard on a radio broadcast that a storm that had originated southwest of Oklahoma City was headed toward Shawnee.

   "We got in the truck and left," Carter said. With upward of 30 minutes' notice for Pottawatomie County, Carter had time to leave one of the few frame homes in Steelman Estates — and most of her house was intact when she returned.

   "I walked up, and the house was OK. Part of the roof was gone," she said.

   The scene was different a short distance away.

   "Trees were all gone. I walked further down and all those houses were gone," she said.

   Booth said a 79-year-old man was found dead out in the open at Steelman Estates, but the sheriff didn't have details on where he had lived.

   "You can see where there's absolutely nothing, then there are places where you have mobile home frames on top of each other, debris piled up," Booth said. "It looks like there's been heavy equipment in there on a demolition tour.

   "It's pretty bad. It's pretty much wiped out," he said.

   Tornadoes were reported Sunday in Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma as part of a storm system that stretched from Texas to Minnesota.

   Following the Oklahoma twisters, local emergency officials went from home site to home site in an effort to account for everyone. Keli Cain, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said that, many times in such situations, people who are not found immediately are discovered later to have left the area ahead of the storm.

   A storm spotter told the National Weather Service that the tornado left the earth "scoured" at the mobile home park. At the nearby intersection of Interstate 40 and U.S. 177, a half-dozen tractor-trailers were blown over, closing both highways for a time.

The South Roxana, Illinois man who admitted to hitting and killing a motorcyclist two years ago, will head to prison.

Lloyd Denny told prosecutors he was talking on his phone and taking prescription medications when he rear ended the motorcycle and killed Bradley Umphlett in Alton. KSDK reports that just days before his sentencing, Denny's bond was revoked for possession of heroin.

Denny will spend three years behind bars.

One person is dead after being thrown from a car in an accident off Collinsville Road. A portion of the road was shut down between N 47th St and N 49th St. in both directions in Fairmont City Monday morning and reopened near noon.

The Illinois State Police report a GMC Denali and Buick LeSabre were speeding westbound down Collinsville Road,

Both cars lost control and spun off to the right.

It's unclear if the two cars were racing but the Illinois State police said they were speeding. The accident happened around 4:45 Monday morning. 

Fox 2 News reports several parents arrived at the scene as police interviewed several young people. 

No names have been released.

 

 

A St. Charles County man faces over three decades in prison for allegedly causing an accident that took the life of an unborn baby.

Prosecutors say Paul Murphy was under the influence of benzodiazepine--an anxiety and insomnia medication--when he hit the car carrying a pregnant woman on March 16. The woman was 19 weeks pregnant when the accident happened and she gave birth to a still born baby.

If convicted on all three counts of assault he faces, Murphy could spend 36 years behind bars.

 

   Police say a diabetic seizure may have been behind the accident that killed a baby and seriously injured it's mother at a Metro Bus Stop in Northwoods Monday morning.

   The Missouri Highway Patrol reports that the driver of the car, 41 year old Larry Jones, may have blacked out just before crashing his car in the 6900 block of Natural Bridge.  Witnesses say his car suddenly veered across the street, hit a light post and then crashed into a MetroBus.  

   Thirty-nine-year old Erica Hughes and her infant daughter, Alyja Hughes had been waiting for the bus.  Both were struck.  Baby Alyja was thrown some 50 feet from the impact.  

   Bystanders, including an off duty firefighter administred CPR.  The infant was rushed to St. Louis Childrens Hospital, but died anyway.  

   Both Jones and Hughes are hospitalized in serious condition.

 

A four vehicle crash near Tower Grove Park leaves one man dead.

Police say a 61-year-old man hit three cars and then a tree. He died at the scene. The accident reconstruction team is headed to the crash site in the 2600 block of Kingshighway.

A head-on collision in Godfrey, Illinois Friday, left two people dead. The accident happened just before 2PM.

The Madison County Sheriff's Office say two vehicles collided in the southbound lane of Martin Luther King Boulevard. Both drivers were pronounced dead at the scene.

UPDATE:
Fire investigators say that a High Ridge home that caught fire this morning, was under foreclosure. More than 30 firefighters responded to the scene and found the body of 24-year-old Charles Odell in the burned out home. KMOV reports that kerosene heaters were found in the house and the home's gas supply had previously been shut off. Odell was alone in the house at the time of the fire. EARLIER:
Jefferson County fire investigators are trying to find out how a High Ridge home caught fire this morning--killing a man in his mid 20's.

The two-alarm blaze was reported at about 4 a.m.near the end of Ridge Road, off of New Sugar Creek Road north of Highway 30.

Tom Lakin, deputy chief of the High Ridge Fire Protection District, said a neighbor reported hearing what sounded like an explosion. When firefighters arrived, they saw the single-family home engulfed in flames, with fire coming through the roof. The man's body was found under debris after the roof collapsed.

More than 30 firefighters from five departments were on the scene. No firefighters were injured.

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A wrong-way crash on U.S. 55 in eastern Missouri has left one man dead and another man injured.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the accident occurred early Saturday when a car headed south in the northbound lanes collided with another car.

The car that headed in the wrong direction caught fire, and the driver was pronounced dead at the scene. The 36-year-old driver of the other car was taken to an area hospital, where he was listed in serious but stable condition.