A two-year-old boy was killed when a huge tree uprooted by a tornado landed on a family home in a Detroit suburb, as storms left a trail of destruction in the interior Northeast on Wednesday, leaving families trapped in their homes.
The tree fell through the roof and landed on a bed where the child and his mother were sleeping around 3:30 p.m. in Livonia, Michigan — the latest fatality in a long and deadly tornado season.
The unidentified woman was taken to a local hospital and was in critical condition, the city of Livonia said in a statement, while the child was pronounced dead at the scene.
“Crews worked tirelessly for nearly an hour to remove the roof and parts of the tree and then lifted the tree with high-pressure airbags to free the victims,” the statement said.
“This is a terrible tragedy for our community,” added Livonia Mayor Maureen Miller Brosnan. “Our hearts are also broken and we extend our deepest condolences.” The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado rated EF-1, with winds up to 95 miles per hour, touched down in Livonia and moved 5 miles with a width of 1,500 feet. meters.
Elsewhere, a powerful storm spawned a tornado that swept 45 miles (72 kilometers) through Montgomery County, Maryland, on Wednesday. Five people were injured in the city of Gaithersburg, Maryland, north of Washington DC, when a large tree fell on their home. Four of the five had to be rescued and all were taken to a local hospital for treatment. Fire officials said one of them suffered a “traumatic injury.”
“They were pulled out of a room right here under all the rubble. There was some pretty significant damage and some injuries,” Pete Piringer, spokesman for the Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service, said in a post on X.
He shared a video showing a huge uprooted tree on its side, partially destroying the house.
Videos uploaded to social media show a massive funnel cloud over Gaithersburg – surprising residents of an area not used to tornadic activity. “First #tornado I ever saw, love MD!” wrote one person on .
One storm chaser, Mark Monis, captured the moment the tornado struck Gaithersburg while sitting in his car. He told NBC Washington, “I thought, ‘Jesus, this could have been worse.’ So thank goodness it was probably just an F0 or F1. If he had picked up my truck, I probably would have been dead.”
At least four homes were damaged elsewhere in Montgomery County, with 88 weather incidents reported Wednesday between 6 and 8:30 p.m. Firefighters also investigated reported storm damage in the Williams Estates area of Baltimore County.
An emergency shelter opened Thursday morning in Frazeysburg, a town in rural Ohio. There were no reports of injuries there as what the local sheriff’s office called a tornado caused extensive damage.
Showers and thunderstorms are expected on the East Coast today, the National Weather Service said in a forecast, while a severe heat wave continues in western states and Texas.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
