DESTRUCTIVE

Deadly Storm Kills 9, Moves East

After wreaking havoc in Midwest Wednesday morning.

Officials feared the destruction that could be made by a storm that ripped through the heart of the Midwest early Wednesday morning, killing nine people. As the storm, which caused as many as 16 tornadoes and whipped winds as high as 170 miles per hour, marched east toward more populated areas, residents in rural Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois were left picking up the pieces that also injured as many as 100 people. States across the mid-Atlantic region are on tornado watch Wednesday evening as meteorologists feared the storm could claim more lives. Harrisburg, Ill., was the hardest-hit city of the day, where six people died in the wake of the tornadoes, which were said to be as wide as three or four football fields.