The storms that killed at least 24 people across Arkansas, Mississippi and Missouri on Friday and Saturday continued to pummel a vast section of the South, leveling homes, taking down power lines and turning communities into debris fields.

Before the intense and long-lasting tornadoes arrived, forecasters said that their level of threat was typically experienced only once or twice in a lifetime.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported 12 fatalities in the southern and eastern counties of the state as of Saturday evening.

In Arkansas, three people were killed in Independence County, and 32 others were injured across the state, according to the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management.

Six people died in Southern Mississippi and 29 others were injured across the state, Gov. Tate Reeves said on social media. In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey said three people had died and that damage was reported in 52 of the state’s 67 counties.

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Crews work to remove a fallen tree from a home in Florissant, Mo., on Saturday.Credit…Michael B. Thomas for The New York Times

Locations of tornado sightings or damage reported since Friday morning.

Source: National Weather Service | Notes: Reports are considered preliminary. Data is for the 72 hours starting on March 14 at 8 a.m. Eastern, during which updates are made every 10 minutes.

By Julie Walton Shaver and John Keefe

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