Severe storms cut power supply to 540,000 homes in US midwest – The Guardian

Severe storms cut power supply to 540,000 homes in US midwest  The Guardian

Indiana faced most outages at 267,000, about 8% of its customers, with severe thunderstorms and wind ahead Power supply was cut on Thursday ⁠to about 540,000 homes and businesses across the US midwest as severe storms battered the region, data ⁠from PowerOutage.us showed. Indiana ⁠was the ​hardest-hit state, with more than 267,000 outages, representing about 8% of its roughly 3.3 million customers, the data ⁠showed. “Rounds of severe thunderstorms will threaten the plains, midwest and east into Thursday with damaging wind gusts, while repeated ⁠downpours could trigger dangerous flash flooding,” the weather forecaster AccuWeather said in a ​statement. First responders had rescued many people from floodwaters on Wednesday as utility crews cleared trees and wires downed by the severe storms in the midwest that have unleashed tornadoes, heavy rains and flash flooding across the region for several days.

A four-year-old boy was killed when a tree fell on a home in Geneva, Indiana, during Tuesday’s storms, the Jennings county sheriff’s office said. Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, said a resident of Roseville died during a health emergency when first responders, faced with flooded roads, couldn’t reach them. Officials in Portage, Indiana, were investigating whether the severe weather played a role in a reported house explosion that killed a person. Indiana’s hardest-hit utility was Northern ‌Indiana Public Service Company, ‌taking out services