A 14-State Barrage of Twisters

After Hugo and the quake, a deadly autumn brings tornadoes

Once a month this fall, natural disasters have devastated widely scattered parts of the U.S. In September Hurricane Hugo slammed into the Carolina coast; October brought the San Francisco Bay earthquake. Last week the furies returned in a burst of tornadoes. Frigid air howled out of the Arctic to collide with record balmy weather pushing northward from the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. The unseasonable clash generated a hopscotching barrage of twisters through 14 states from Arkansas to New York that killed at least 30 people. Though the storms were briefer than Hugo, the whirling winds were stronger than the hurricane's...

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