美国有线新闻 CNN 美国多州遭遇恶劣天气侵袭 致数人死亡数万人断电（在线收听）

In the United States, the country with the most violent weather in the world there've been more than 500 reports of tornadoes in the last 30 days. That's only happened four times before. The National Weather Service received more than 50 tornado reports on Monday and Tuesday alone. While several states west of the Rocky Mountains recently saw colder than average conditions, much of America east of the Rockies has seen severe storms, flooding and a scorching heat wave.

There's been a lot of damage in the Midwest. Parts of Ohio are cleaning up after damaging storms and tornadoes swept through early this week. Homes have been destroyed. Schools have been damaged. More than 70,000 people in Ohio had no electricity as of yesterday morning and more heavy storms with the possibility of tornadoes and large hail were in the forecast. Soaking rain was expected in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. South of those states, parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma have been struggling for days with flooding. The city government of North Little Rock, Arkansas says the rising Arkansas River is one problem.

The fact that the city's storm water drains to that river and could become blocked from doing that is another. One state west, severe weather in Oklahoma has been blamed for the deaths of nine people since late April and the governor says things could still get worse there. For the time being, the threat of dangerous storms isn't expected to let up in many parts of America but there are some things you can do to protect yourself if your area is under the threat of a tornado.