More tornadoes expected in central US after N Carolina storm

The first serious, prolonged storms of the year were brewing on Saturday in the Great Plains, with a growing risk of tornadoes touching down in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas in the coming days, federal meteorologists said. A separate storm system sent at least one tornado tearing through coastal North Carolina overnight on Friday. Dozens of homes in Beaufort County collapsed, at least 16 people were hurt and thousands lost electricity, a county official said. Rescue teams in the county spent the night and early Saturday morning "tearing people's houses apart where their house had collapsed around them," John Pack, the county's director of emergency services, said in a phone interview. Some 150 homes were damaged or destroyed by winds in excess of 100 miles an hour (160 km an hour), he said, and three people were taken to a trauma center at a hospital in Greenville, North Carolina. Their injuries were serious but not life-threatening, he said. About 2,500 residents were likely to remain without electricity for at least a couple more days while workers cleared downed trees and repaired power lines, Pack said. That storm has since moved out to sea, but a new severe storm system is gaining strength in the Great Plains where large hail and damaging winds were expected within the next 24 hours, meteorologists said, according to a news agency.