Emergency declared as tornado rips through Arizona

Thanks for joining us. We're tracking severe weather across Arizona right now at four with heavy rain, large hail, localized flooding and tornado warnings. Yeah, here we go again. A possible tornado touchdown overnight, though, near Heber-Overgard, leaving a path of destruction and a tornado watch is in effect until 8 p.m. And once again, we have crews spread out across Arizona. But let's begin our coverage right now with Corey tracking today's storms. Corey, what can you tell us? There's a lot going on. It's much like yesterday, although not quite is widespread. Nevertheless, we have several severe thunderstorm warnings out and flash flood warnings also. So let's get right to it. I'll give you about two minutes worth. We'll expand later as we move through this half hour. But here you see it's mostly eastern Arizona that is catching these severe thunderstorm warnings at the moment. First of all, we take you over near Safford for essentially southeastern Graham County and west central parts of Greenlee County. But Safford, Thatcher, Solomon, San Jose, the airport at Safford, Roper Lake State Park, and Swift Trail Junction, all being affected by this severe thunderstorm. It continues to work its way off to the northeast pretty quickly, about 35 to 45 miles an hour. And also, we're talking about, obviously, very heavy rainfall. There's hail within that storm. It's just about ready to exit its warned area, so it may be extended off to the north and east. This for the Aravaipa Wilderness, very rugged territory here nevertheless, north of San Manuel. That storm has popped up and it will continue and probably will become severe or continue to be severe. And we'll see that warning extended past 4:15 into a different part of eastern Arizona. Now for northwestern Graham County, this warning out also until 4:15. Again, not many folks live along that mountain ridge there, but we'll keep it up there because it's moving its way off to the north and east. And then finally, over around Hannigan Meadow and Blue and Rose Peaks, ping-pong-sized hail in this storm, 60-mile-an-hour winds. As with all of these severe thunderstorms, the wind basement is 60 miles an hour, so the gusts are sometimes even higher. But this warning is out until 5:30, and we'll just widen things out a bit and show you that there's perhaps more to come. We have another severe thunderstorm warning that's just popped up here down in the lower portion of your screen there. That is just to the west of Sierra Vista, but that storm is likely to, let's see, Tucumcari and Amado, Rio Rico, Tubac, you folks down south. although they're not catching our signal. If you know folks down that way, give them a buzz because this storm continues to move off to the northeast at 25. Golf ball-sized hail there and wind gusts at about 60. So over the next 15 minutes or so, I'll be back with lots more on what we're seeing now and what we can expect as the night wears on. I think I've got some good news for everybody. All that in a few minutes, Tina. Okay, sounds good, Corey. Thank you. A suspected tornado hit Heber Overguard last night, knocking out power, toppling trees, damaging homes and other buildings, too. Yeah, neighbors say that that storm, which included pounding rain and hail, was unlike anything that they've ever seen. Fox 10's Taylor Wirtz joining us live there now with more. Taylor. Mark and Christina, a terrifying ordeal for all the people here in Heber Overguard. We're hearing that the National Weather Service is assessing last night's storm to determine if, in fact, it was an official tornado. The good news is no one was hurt, but that damage is widespread all over this community. Take a look at this home over my shoulder here. You can see that tree snapped in half, flown into the roof of this house with a storage shed lifted up off of its hinges, crashing through the wall. The homeowner is okay, but says it was a scary thing to happen. Heber Overguard Fire Chief Jason Payne says one person was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. That person was actually on a bike when the storm hit and was thrown off of it. There is plenty of damage throughout this community, as you can see in our video from today. So today was mainly about assessing damage on homes and roads and identifying potential hazards. We're told that the electric company was able to restore power very quickly to the majority of neighbors early this morning. the Navajo County Board of Supervisors has issued a declaration of emergency which should help trigger resources from state and federal agencies. The woman who lives in the home behind me says despite the damage she's dealing with, she feels fortunate. Those things can be replaced, so I'm just blessed to be alive and be able to get past this. It breaks my heart though for everybody else. I try to, you know, think about the positives in it that I wasn't hurt, but then you look at what happened to everybody else, too. Governor Katie Hobbs issued a statement on the suspected tornado, saying her administration is coordinating with Navajo County Emergency Management on sheltering and support, and that she's ready to deploy resources to assess damage, directing DEMA, DPS, and ADOT to work with county officials. Now, we have heard from a lot of neighbors today who feel that that tornado alert that went out was a little too late. The woman who lives in this home said she got it after the storm hit. many people saying they got it just a minute or two before. So we expect that is a topic of discussion that we'll be hearing about in the coming days. Mark, Christina. All right, Taylor, we heard that tornado, possible tornado coming through last night in the dark, 7 p.m. a little after. A lot of us were worried that perhaps people didn't get that warning, were maybe stranded in their house, possibly injured or worse. But it sounds like everyone somehow dodged a bullet here. Yeah, other than that person on a bicycle who the fire chief says was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, it sounds like everyone was pretty lucky. Most people we talked with were inside their homes or in restaurants. Clearly, a lot of them seem to feel like they dodged a bullet last night. Yeah, I'm sure that biker has quite the story. Absolutely, don't want to be caught out in that scary situation there. Taylor, thank you. Let's get over now to Ashley, we're breaking down how tornadoes are categorized and also how the experts determine the intensity of it Ashley. That's right and we're calling it a possible tornado because we still are anticipating the National Weather Service to go out there and assess the damage itself and there's a lot to take into account when it comes to assessing the damage of tornadoes with the scale called the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Now this was developed by Ted Fujita, a Japanese American meteorologist who developed this back in 1971 and it uses different components to determine these tornadoes. One of those being that it uses 28 damage indicators and degrees of damage, assesses damage to buildings, trees, and other structures, estimates a tornado's wind speed based on observed damage, and it does rate the tornadoes from EF0 to EF5. So here's a look at that rating system and really where we can anticipate where we stand when it comes to that possible tornado that we witnessed so EF0 that is the lowest and the more minor of the five categories that includes damage to gutters power outages shingles peeled off and then we take it to some more moderate conditions and EF1 upwards to 110 mile per hour wind speeds significant roof damage i should say and EF2 which is pretty considerable and then further down the line we go to more severe conditions such as an EF3 and EF4 that's extreme and the worst of the scale which is incredible damage now as far as the tornado that we witnessed we're looking right now anywhere between an EF1 to an EF2 but again we are going to see the National Weather Service out there confirming whether or not this was in fact a tornado but due to the damage that was dealt with due to those severe storms. We are certainly anticipating it to be categorized in this rating system. But with that said, of course, we still have some more storms. And of course, Corey will be on standby tracking those conditions for you. Okay, Ashley, thank you. Here's some video from this morning. Flash flooding swept through parts of Sedona. It was rushing up there. This video was sent to us by Riley Williams, one of our viewers. Thank you for this, Riley. We're told a group of hikers at Soldier Pass, which is on the northern end of Sedona, called for help around 9 this morning. They say the creeks and washes were quickly filling up with water. You know how fast that can happen. And it was dangerous to pass, so Sedona Fire helped five hikers get across safely and no one was hurt. Rain and fast-moving water also led to a dangerous rescue near Seligman. Firefighters say that a vehicle got trapped against a tree in about four feet of rushing water here. A woman was still inside. Her husband was swept downstream while trying to help, but managed to make it safely to shore. Crews also rescued seven dogs that were trapped inside the vehicle with the woman that was in there. Again, everyone is safe.