"We`ll have much better picture of how widespread the damage is when the sun comes up tomorrow," meteorologist Forrest Mitchell with the National Weather Service in Norman said.
The Oklahoma City area seemed to be the hardest hit. A twister destroyed homes in Grady County, southwest of the city, and it appeared another tornado touched down in the area later Wednesday evening when a second storm came through.
"We do strongly think there was a tornado on the south side of Oklahoma City," meteorologist Michael Scotten said after the second storm that hit around 8:40 p.m.
That storm flipped vehicles on Interstate 35 and left power lines strewn across the roadway, Scotten said.
Lara O`Leary, a spokeswoman for Emergency Medical Services Authority, said late Wednesday that the company transported 12 patients from a trailer park in south Oklahoma City to local hospitals. She did not have further details about the extent of the patients` injuries.
Grady County Emergency Management Director Dale Thompson said about 10 homes were destroyed in Amber and 25 were destroyed in Bridge Creek. As the storm moved to the east, forecasters declared a tornado emergency for Moore, where seven schoolchildren were among 24 people killed in a storm two years ago. When the first of the storms moved through Wednesday, school districts held their pupils in safe places.
Also in Grady County, all animals were accounted for after a zoo in Tuttle was hit by a tornado, Alisa Voegeli, a dispatcher at the sheriff`s office, said. The damage had initially prompted fears that wild animals had escaped.
At Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, people were twice evacuated into a tunnel outside the security zone.
After the tornadoes passed through, flash flooding remained a concern.
The National Weather Service received widespread reports of 5 to 8 inches of rain in the area, Mitchell said. A measurement of 7.1 inches at the Oklahoma City airport set a new daily rainfall record, he said, topping the previous record of 2.61 inches.
Oklahoma City spokeswoman Kristy Yager said the rainfall prompted the city to issue a flash flood emergency for the first time in its history. Emergency crews were canvassing the city Wednesday night, she said.
O`Leary said the ambulance service responded to water rescues "all over" the Oklahoma City metro area. Two ambulance crews required also assistance after getting stuck in high water, she said.
A flash flood warning was in effect for parts of six counties in central Oklahoma until 9 a.m. The same warning was also in effect for two counties in north-central Texas. That area also saw reports of tornadoes late Wednesday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, according to Mitchell.
In Nebraska, 10 to 15 homes were damaged near Grand Island, and between Hardy and Ruskin, near the Kansas line.
At least nine tornadoes were reported in Kansas, the strongest of them in the sparsely populated north-central part of the state. That included a large tornado near the tiny town of Republic just south of the Nebraska state line, where some homes were damaged. In Harvey County, a tornado destroyed a hog barn and damaged trees, according to the National Weather Service.
The Storm Prediction Center had warned that bad weather would come to Tornado Alley and said more storms were possible later in the week.
"People just really need to stay weather aware, have a plan and understand that severe storms are possible across portions of the southern Plains almost daily through Saturday," meteorologist Jonathan Kurtz said.
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