Severe storms powered by winds of up to 75mph in Michigan have downed trees, tore roofs off buildings and killed five people.
Hundreds of thousands of customers have been left without power, officials said. The National Weather Service said that some of the damage may have been caused by two tornadoes.
In western Michigan, the Kent County Sheriff’s Office said a 21-year-old woman and two girls, aged one and three, died on Thursday night after two vehicles collided head-on as it was raining.
“There was two vehicles travelling towards each other. One hydroplaned on water and it was occupied by four people,” Sergeant Eric Brunner told WZZM-TV.
The sheriff’s office said a 22-year-old Gowen man who was driving the car carrying the Gowen woman and two girls was seriously injured in the crash, which occurred when his car struck a vehicle. That vehicle’s driver suffered minor injuries.
In Lansing, the state capital, one person died on Thursday night after a tree fell on a home. Lansing Police Department spokeswoman Jordan Gulkis told the Lansing State Journal that firefighters extricated one person from the home but that person was pronounced dead at a hospital.
In nearby Ingham County, where there was a report of a possible tornado, the sheriff’s office said on Friday that one person was confirmed dead and several people severely injured as more than 25 vehicles were severely damaged along Interstate 96.
Trees were uprooted, and some roofs collapsed during Thursday’s storms, leaving many roads closed due to fallen trees and power lines. The National Weather Service in Grand Rapids said officials would be in the field on Friday conducting damage surveys on two suspected tornadoes, in Kent and Ingham counties.
In the north Detroit suburb of Southfield, Muqitu Berry said he was in his ranch home at about 9.30pm on Thursday when a large part of the trunk of a neighbour’s tree came crashing down, sounding “like a train coming through”.
The tree ended up across the front of Mr Berry’s home and took down power lines, dropping them onto his driveway and at least one vehicle, leaving Mr Berry and his neighbours without power.
“I can’t get out of my driveway. I can’t go anywhere,” Mr Berry said on Friday morning. “We’re out of power, and it’s very frustrating.”
Wayne County executive Warren Evans declared a state of emergency on Friday in Michigan’s largest county, which includes Detroit, due to power outages, flooding, fallen trees and power lines and storm debris.
Canton Township, a community of some 100,000 west of Detroit, was hit earlier this week by flooding in its central business district. Then Thursday night’s storms produced what are believed to be “two at least heavy wind shears, if not tornadoes” township supervisor Anne Marie Graham-Hudak said.
“Some of our parks are destroyed,” she said, adding that the township received calls from 200 residents regarding flooding in their basements.
Scientists say that without extensive study they cannot directly link a single weather event to climate change, but that climate change is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme events such as storms, droughts, floods and wildfires.
Climate change is largely caused by human activities that emit carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, according to the vast majority of peer-reviewed studies, science organisations and climate scientists.
