At least two people were killed after multiple toadoes touched down Monday across Oklahoma.
The emergency director in Garvin County, Oklahoma, Bud Ramming, said a man believed to be in his late 70s was found dead in Wyewood, located south of Oklahoma City.
The twister prompted forecasters to issue a "toado emergency" for communities east of Wyewood, noting the storm could be particularly violent.
Another death was reported in Johnston County, Fox 25 reported.
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, had waed that a "substantial toado risk" could develop in portions of the Southe Plains and Ozarks late Monday.
A series of violent thunderstorms dropped toadoes near Oklahoma City and in the rolling hills south of the capital.
"You are in a life-threatening situation," forecasters declared when they declared a toado emergency for Roff, population 725, and Hickory, population 71. "Flying debris will be deadly to those caught without shelter."
Television images showed at least three homes destroyed, multiple overtued vehicles and trees to limb to limb. A roof lay near a hay ba after the first toado reports from near Wyewood along Interstate 35.
Dana Lance was driving through the Pontotoc County community of Roff on her way home from work Monday when the skies grew ominous, and she heard toado sirens and forecasters on the radio urging people in the area to take cover.
"I parked and went into the school, which has a safe room," Lance said. "There were kids and elderly people, dogs and cats, babies. It was like the whole town was there."
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol closed five miles of the main roadway between Oklahoma City and Dallas as the storm approached. It opened about 15 minutes later.
The National Weather Service says a toado that swept through southe Nebraska caused some damage to a rural high school.
Cindy Fay, with the National Weather Service in Hastings, says there were three confirmed toadoes that touched down Monday afteoon near the cities of Fairfield and Clay Center.
Sandra Nejezchleb, the ambulance captain at the Fairfield Fire Department, says no students were injured at Sandy Creek High School in rural Fairfield, but windows of school vans and other vehicles were busted out in the parking lot, there was damage to a school porch awning and an irrigation pivot overtued about a mile south.
Meteorologists said twisters with wind speeds above 111 mph were possible from easte Oklahoma to central Arkansas. Hail 2 inches or more in diameter is possible from easte Texas to southeaste Kansas.
About 41 million people from Houston to Sioux City, Iowa, are at risk for some type of stormy weather.
While the threat was less farther north, forecasters issued a toado waing for a storm near Lincoln, Nebraska.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.