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Tor­na­does and vi­o­lent winds flat­tened homes and ripped apart build­ings from Ok­la­homa to In­di­ana in a se­ries of storms ex­pect­ed to bring record-set­ting rains and life-threat­en­ing flash floods across the na­tion’s mid­sec­tion in the com­ing days.

At least four peo­ple in west­ern Ten­nessee and Mis­souri were killed in the first wave on Wednes­day and ear­ly Thurs­day that spun off pow­er­ful tor­na­does, one launch­ing de­bris near­ly 5 miles (8 kilo­me­tres) above the ground in Arkansas.

Among those killed in Ten­nessee was a man in a home dam­aged by the storm near Moscow, about 50 miles (80 kilo­me­tres) from Mem­phis, said Ray Gar­cia of the Fayette Coun­ty Sher­iff’s Of­fice. Of­fi­cials were prepar­ing for more rain and strong storms on Thurs­day, he said.