OKLAHOMA CITY -- Communities in several states set to work cleaning up Thursday after a night of storms that spawned 51 tornadoes, assessing the damage under sunny skies but with the threat of worse weather on the horizon.
The storms strafed northern Texas, Nebraska and Kansas on Wednesday and early Thursday but reserved their worst for the Oklahoma City area, where at least a dozen people were injured in a trailer park and where a 42-year-old woman was killed.
The woman, whose name wasn't released, apparently took cover in an underground storm shelter and then drowned when it was deluged by floodwater, police Sgt. Gary Knight said.
While residents assessed the damage Thursday afternoon, a large cluster of thunderstorms was developing in western Oklahoma that was expected to deliver hail and damaging winds.
Meanwhile, the conditions appeared to be ripe for storms that could produce more powerful tornadoes today and Saturday, said meteorologist John Hart of the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
"The conditions are right; it's the right time of year," Hart said. "There are just a lot of things that make you think over the next three days there will probably be big tornadoes across the Southern Plains."
An area covering southern Kansas, western Oklahoma and parts of North Texas would likely bear the brunt of the storms today and Saturday, he said.
Texas officials said severe thunderstorms Thursday evening spawned several tornadoes over open land northwest of Dallas and Fort Worth that resulted in scattered reports of light damage but no injuries.
The likelihood of another round of storms so soon left some Oklahoma residents wondering whether they should wait to begin cleaning up.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency for 12 central Oklahoma counties. The hardest hit appeared to be the rural community of Bridge Creek, about 30 miles southwest of Oklahoma City, where 25 homes were destroyed.
Flooding remained a concern throughout the region, after 5-8 inches of rain fell in many areas, said Forrest Mitchell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Norman.
The 7.1 inches that fell in Oklahoma City was the third-highest rainfall for any day on record, dating back to 1890, said state climatologist Gary McManus.
Heavy damage also was reported in Norman and Oklahoma City. A hotel and mobile home park along Interstate 35 in south Oklahoma City were heavily damaged by a rain-wrapped tornado that dropped from the sky after dark.
Oklahoma City spokesman Kristy Yager said crews were still conducting damage assessments Thursday.
In Norman, a large piece of a metal roof torn from the gymnasium at Community Christian School was found wrapped around a light pole at a baseball field more than 100 yards away.
Jim Ohsfeldt, whose wife is the principal of the school, spent Thursday morning with student volunteers picking up soggy insulation scattered across the parking lot.
"They say it's going to hit again, but I think it's going to go north or south and pick on somebody else," Ohsfeldt said.
A Section on 05/08/2015