midwest storms

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) -- Forecasters cautioned millions of people in Middle America to keep an eye to the sky Wednesday and Thursday amid threats of hail, high winds and strong tornadoes.

A massive line of storms packing hail, lightning and tree-toppling winds has started rolling through the Midwest. The storms could affect more than one in five Americans from Iowa to Maryland before subsiding.

The violent storms that ravaged the Midwest and South have claimed another victim.

State police in Indiana say they believe they've accounted for all residents in the largely rural area that was hit by a tornado outbreak Friday.

Emergency crews are combing through shredded homes and obliterated neighborhoods in a desperate search for tornado survivors.

Powerful storms stretching from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes flattened buildings in several states, wrecked two Indiana towns and bred anxiety across a wide swath of the country in the second powerful tornado outbreak this week.

Jeff Rann lived just blocks from his parents in the southern Illinois city of Harrisburg, but he got a tragic firsthand view of the fickle violence a major tornado can bring.

A powerful storm system that produced multiple reports of tornadoes lashed the Midwest early Wednesday, roughing up the country music resort city of Branson and laying waste to small towns in Illinois and Kansas. At least 13 people were killed.