Storm Hits Oklahoma City PART-2

Earlier, flash flooding and tornadoes killed three people in Arkansas as powerful storms swept through the nation's midsection, including a local sheriff who drowned while checking on residents whose house was eventually swamped by rising water, authorities said Friday. Three other people are missing.

The storms rolled across the region overnight, and more bad weather was poised to strike Friday, with tornadoes and baseball-sized hail forecast from Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. Flooding also is a concern in parts of Missouri, Iowa and Illinois through Sunday.

Torrential rain, including at least 6 inches in the rugged terrain of western Arkansas, posed the greatest danger the night before. In Y City, about 125 miles west of Little Rock, the Fourche La Fave River rose 24 feet in just 24 hours.

"The water just comes off that hill like someone is pouring a bucket in there," said Danny Straessle, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Highway and Transportation. "This was an incredible amount of water."

Storm Hits Oklahoma City PART-1

OKLAHOMA CITY Tornadoes rolled in from the prairie and slammed Oklahoma City and its suburbs Friday, trapping people in their vehicles as a storm swept down an interstate highway while commuters tried to beat it home.

A mother and her baby were killed, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. The Associated Press, citing the Oklahoma medical examiner's office, reported that five people were killed from the tornadoes. CBS News tried contacting the medical examiner's office Friday evening, but the calls went unanswered.

Meteorologists who had warned about particularly nasty weather said the storm's fury didn't match that of a deadly twister that struck suburban Moore last week. Violent weather also moved through the St. Louis area, ripping the roof off a suburban casino.

About 50 people were hurt, five critically, hospital officials said. Newson6.com reported that

Friday's broad storm hit during the evening rush hour and stuck around, causing havoc on Interstate 40, a major artery connecting suburbs east and west of the city, and dropping so much rain on the area that streets were flooded to a depth of 4 feet.

To the south, a severe storm with winds approaching 80 mph rolled into Moore, where a top-of-the-scale EF5 tornado killed 24 on May 20.

Rick Smith, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service at Norman, said that while the storm packed a powerful punch, it wasn't as strong as the Moore tornado.

"This storm had everything you could handle at one time: tornadoes, hail, lightning, heavy rain, people clogging the highways," Smith said.

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