Just some of what we in the Mid-West deal with .
EARLY TORNADO SEASON
The U.S. tornado season started early this year, with twisters already blamed for 62 deaths in 2012 in the Midwest and South, raising concerns that this year would be a repeat of 2011, the deadliest tornado year in nearly a century.
Some 550 people died in tornadoes last year, including 316 killed in an April outbreak in five Southern states, and 161 people in Joplin, Missouri, the following month.
As of early Sunday morning, the National Weather Service website said it had received preliminary reports of 121 tornadoes across four states over the previous 24 hours. Some could be duplicate reports of the same tornado and it usually takes experts at least a day or so to confirm if they were tornadoes.
In Iowa, The Greater Regional Medical Center hospital in Creston was damaged by a possible tornado, said a woman who answered the phone there but declined to give her name.
An Iowa emergency management spokesman said two people were injured, but the National Weather Service could not immediately confirm the storm was a tornado.
Creston City Councilman Randy White said patients were being moved to hospitals in surrounding communities after the tornado passed north and west of downtown, knocking out power to all but a small part of the town of about 7,500 people.
The tiny Iowa town of Thurman, population around 250, was also hit by a storm that caused structural damage to some homes and ripped shingles off the roofs of others while downing power poles and trees, officials said.
"Some kind of a storm went through, whether it was a straight wind or tornado hasn't been determined," said Randy Chapman, a deputy at the Fremont County Sheriff's Office. "I would estimate a fourth of the houses have been made unlivable."
Tornadoes also raced through north-central Kansas in the early evening. Five homes in rural Saline County were damaged, but the tornado avoided towns and no one was hurt, said Joe Koch, county director of emergency management.
An apparent tornado near Oxford, Nebraska, on Saturday evening took a roof off a farm house and toppled a grain bin but no injuries or other serious damage in the area were reported, said Bridget Timmerman, a dispatcher for the Harlan County sheriff's office.
Tornadoes briefly touched down earlier in Nebraska's Nuckolls County and Thayer County. (Reporting by Corrie MacLaggan, Steve Olafson and Tim Gaynor; Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Greg McCune)
