Tornadoes destroy homes in Tennessee, Kentucky as wild storms hit central US

At least five people have been killed as severe thunderstorms swept through the central US, spawning tornadoes that flattened homes, gale force winds and widespread flooding.

Gio Rodriguez, 8, sits outside his Tennessee home after a
 storm which caused chaos across much of the central United States.

The system, stretching from Texas to the Canadian Maritime provinces, had prompted several emergency declarations even before the dangerous storms arrived.

Storm crews confirmed two tornadoes touched down in middle Tennessee and Kentucky, with maximum-sustained winds of 193 kilometres per hour.

One of the tornados struck in south-central Kentucky, causing homes to collapse and cars to flip over, and a 79-year-old woman died after her Adairville home was destroyed, the Logan County Sheriff's Office said.

Read the ABC News story - “Tornadoes destroy homes in Tennessee, Kentucky as wild storms hit central US.”

Tropical Storm Harvey: Record rainfall, tornadoes slam Texas as catastrophic floods force thousands to flee

Texans are being warned to brace themselves for "unprecedented" rainfall of up to 1.3 metres, as record floods, tidal surges and tornadoes hit communities already devastated by Tropical Storm Harvey.

Rivers have overflowed, turning roads into rivers.

Emergency crews raced to pull people from cars and homes as flood waters rose on Sunday, rescuing more than 1,000 people around Houston, a city of about 2 million — the fourth most populous in the United States.

At least two people are dead but the death toll is expected to rise as the storm triggers additional tidal surges and tornadoes, with parts of the region expected to see a year's worth of rainfall in the span of a week.

"This event is unprecedented and all impacts are unknown and beyond anything experienced," the National Weather Service said on Twitter.

Read the ABC News story - “Tropical Storm Harvey: Record rainfall, tornadoes slam Texas as catastrophic floods force thousands to flee.”

From disaster to finance without drawing a breath

The damage from the latest U.S.
tornadoes has shocked many.

Radio National this morning told of the tornadoes that swept across 12 American states, killing six people and leaving destruction that even tornado-hardened people were aghast at.

The report, comprehensive and of a standard one expects from the ABC, was followed seamlessly by the finance report that told of an upswing on the U.S. share market illustrating that “business as usual” was in fact getting better.

The seamless switch from disaster to the cause of that disaster was made without so much as drawing a breath.

That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but what is depressing is our inability to see that our fiscal and pecuniary intoxication, our incessant swilling from the fountain of economic insistence, is precisely what is causing the reported tornadoes.

The Huffington Post reported on the tornadoes in a story headed: “Midwest tornadoes: severe storms sweep across 12 states, killing 6”.