Scott Shaw / The Plain Dealer

Charles Ramsey talks to media as people congratulate him on helping some women get out of a home in the 2200 block of Seymour Ave on May 6, 2013.

Cleveland’s most camera-ready hero may now also be its best fed.

More than a dozen Ohio restaurants and at least one in Pennsylvania have pledged free burgers for life to Charles Ramsey, the Big Mac-munching man who was credited with helping a woman escape from the home where she had been held captive, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

Ramsey mentioned in numerous interviews earlier this month that he had been chowing down on a McDonald's burger when he heard screams from the house across the street, spurring the fast-food giant to tweet they would “be in touch.”

The hometown hamburger homages began with an 8-ounce Angus beef patty with a secret sauce devised by Chris Hodgson, chef at the downtown restaurant where Ramsey works as a dishwasher.

“He’s calm in the face of crazy and hectic things going on,” Hodgson told the Cleveland Plain Dealer after police rescued Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight from the house where they were allegedly held captive and raped for a decade. “He always steps up to do anything you ask.”

The “Ramsey Burger” started out as a temporary menu item, but has since become permanent and the idea has spread to other restaurants, according to the Plain Dealer.

“We want to honor our local hero with local food,” Cleveland restaurateur Scott Kuhn told the paper. “He stopped his meal midway through to help those women. We’re now making sure he has other opportunities to go out and fully enjoy his burger.”

Ramsey gained instant celebrity with his candid and profanity-flecked retellings of how he kicked in the door of suspect Ariel Castro’s home so Amanda Berry and her child could climb out.

But the man, who has been traveling on paid leave according to the Plain Dealer, said he didn’t have any choice but to help.

“My father would have whupped the hell out of me if I cowered out,” Ramsey told a reporter after the rescue.

Related:

• Chuck Ramsey: Definition of a hero, bro
• Charles Ramsey shirt sales to benefit victims
• 'Can I help?' Neighbor Charles Ramsey tells of role in discovery of missing women

Jim Mone / AP

Rescue personnel gather near an entrance to Lilydale Regional Park above the Mississippi River during a suspension of search efforts to find a fourth child missing after a landslide swept over a group of children on a fourth grade field trip Wednesday, May 22, 2013, in St. Paul, Minn.

Authorities said they would continue their search Thursday for a Minnesota child who remained missing after a gravel slide swept several children on a school fossil-hunting trip into a pit, killing one.

The fourth-graders from a St. Louis Park elementary school were hiking in Lilydale Regional Park on Wednesday when a steep slope soaked by rain gave way, authorities have said. Two trapped children were dug out by firefighters who clawed away gravel with their hands and shovels, they said.

“It appears they were walking along and the ground, after the rain we’ve had, was so soft and it gave way and they fell into what became a hole and the earth came on top of them,” St. Paul Fire Marshal Steve Zaccard said at a news conference, according to NBC News affiliate KARE.

Scott Takushi / AP

An emergency worker attends to a person on a stretcher, being evacuated out of a rockslide site by helicopter, on the West Side of St. Paul, Wednesday, May 22, 2013.

One of the children pulled from the pit later died, and has not yet been identified by authorities.

“The slide had fallen down on top of them," Zaccard said. “One was partially buried, one was completely buried.”

The search for the missing student was suspended overnight as rescuers battled worsening conditions.

“Water is flowing right into the hole making it extremely dangerous for rescuers to work anymore,” Zaccard said. “We are working with our partners in Parks and Public Works to make the scene safe for what’s become a recovery effort for what might be a fourth victim.”

A man who identified himself as the missing child’s uncle said the student “liked geology,” according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.

“Thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the children and to our first responders who continue to deal with the situation as it develops,” said St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman.

Officials toured the scene of a two-train collision in Connecticut that injured dozens of people and halted rail traffic from New York to Boston on Friday.

Area hospitals reported seeing 70 people after the rush-hour collision. Two remained in critical condition on Saturday.

“The damage is absolutely staggering,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters on Saturday after a tour of the scene. “Ribbons on the sides of cars are torn away like ribbons of clothes. Tons of metal tossed around like toy things. The insides of cars are shattered.”

“We are fortunate that even more injuries were not the result of this very tragic and unfortunate accident,” Blumenthal said.

An eastbound Metro-North train derailed at 6:10 p.m. on Friday and was struck by a westbound train between the Bridgeport and Fairfield stations, National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener told reporters on Saturday.

Investigators from the NTSB arrived in Connecticut at about 9 a.m. on Saturday morning and planned to begin documenting the scene of the crash, Weener said. Investigators planned to spend between seven to 10 days on scene, and will conduct interviews with the train’s crew members, passengers, and witnesses.

“We will not be determining the probable cause of the accident while we’re here on the scene, nor will we speculate on what may have caused the accident,” Weener said.

Later on Saturday, investigators said they had zeroed in on a fractured part of the rail line as being of particular interest. It has not been determined whether that fracture happened before or as a result of the accident, they said.

The FBI is no longer a part of the investigation, authorities said.

St. Vincent Hospital in Bridgeport, Conn. said on Saturday that it saw a total of 44 patients, six of whom were admitted for treatment. All those patients remained in the hospital on Saturday and were reported to be in stable condition.

Bridgeport Hospital saw a total of 26 patients and admitted three. Two of those patients were in critical condition a day after the accident, and a third was being held for further treatment.

Passengers who were on the two trains described the rending collision in vivid terms.

“We came to a sudden halt. We were jerked. There was smoke,” passenger Alex Cohen, a Canadian who was riding the westbound train toward New York, told NBC Connecticut.

“People were screaming, people were really nervous,” Cohen said. “We were pretty shaken up. They had to smash a window to get us out.”

A female conductor helped other passengers evacuate the train despite herself sustaining back injuries, authorities said at a press conference late Saturday afternoon.

The Metro-North train that departs New York City’s Grand Central Station for New Haven, Conn., at 4:41 p.m., with an estimated 300 passengers, derailed near the I-95 overpass in Bridgeport, MTA said in a statement. The train that leaves New Haven’s State Street station for Grand Central at 5:30 p.m., carrying about 400 passengers, struck the derailed train, the statement said.

Amtrak service between New York City and New Haven, Conn. remained suspended on Saturday following the accident, Amtrak said in a release. Trains would not run through Sunday, and the train service said it could not give an estimate on when schedules may return to normal.

Amtrak service between New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., remained as scheduled, Amtrak said.

Metro-North, which runs between New York City and its northern suburbs in New York and Connecticut, is one of the busiest commuter rail services in the U.S. There are four tracks on that segment of the New Haven Line, an MTA statement said, but two are out of service for replacement of overhead wires.

There was "extensive damage" to the track and the wire from the collision, MTA said. The train cars will remain in place until the investigation is completed.

NBC News Carlo Dellaverson and M. Alex Johnson contributed to this report.

Related:

• 60 injured, five critically, as trains collide in Connecticut
  

This story was originally published on Sat May 18, 2013 11:31 AM EDT

A US Airways flight made a belly landing at Newark International Airport in the early morning hours on Saturday after the plane reported a problem with its landing gear, a spokesman for the airline said.

No injuries were reported after Express Flight 4560 landed just after 1 a.m. carrying 31 passengers and three crew from Philadelphia, US Airways spokesman Davien Anderson said in a statement. The De Havilland DASH-8 100 turboprop plane was operated by Piedmont Airlines, he said.

“Passengers were evacuated, transported to a terminal and loaded on buses,” Anderson said. “All passengers departed the airport shortly after the landing after being reunited with their belongings and baggage.”

The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating the emergency landing and assessing the extent of damage to the plane, the agency said on its Twitter feed on Saturday.

The plane declared an emergency after its left main landing gear failed to extend, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. The FAA is also investigating the incident.

“The aircraft landed successfully on Runway 4L at about 1 a.m. The airport was closed until 2:55 a.m.,” the FAA said in a statement. “Runway 4L remained closed until 9:34 a.m.”

The aircraft sustained “minimal damage,” FAA spokesman Arlene Salec told NBC New York.

WNBC

Sheriffs in Colorado filed a federal lawsuit Friday ahead of the implementation of new state gun laws that broaden background checks and limit the size of ammunition magazines, saying that the bills would be nearly impossible to enforce.

The laws "severely restrict citizens' rights to own, use, manufacture, sell, or transfer firearms and firearms accessories," the sheriffs said in their complaint in the U.S. district court.

"This is a bipartisan effort," said Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith. "These are Democratic sheriffs and Republican sheriffs who came together."

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, magazine-maker Magpul Industries, and the Colorado State Shooting Association were among other groups that filed suit alongside sheriffs against the laws, which are set to take effect June 1.

Scarred by some of the deadliest incidents of gun violence in American history, including last year's Aurora movie theater shooting and the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, the state's gun control bills gained national attention as various states and the federal government debated new gun restrictions.

The sheriffs said in the filing that their ability to enforce the laws, particularly the ban on magazines that hold more than 15 rounds, will be constrained by other concerns.

"The Sheriffs have limited resources and limited public funds to spend on investigations," they said in the court documents. "They cannot expend those resources to conduct investigations that would be necessary to monitor compliance with the new magazine restrictions. No documentation has ever been required for the retail or private purchase of magazines, making it a practical impossibility for the Sheriffs to determine whether one of the many magazines already in existence was obtained after the effective date."

The sheriffs also said that Coloradans would find it difficult to comply with expanded background check regulations that would require transfers between individuals to be conducted through a federally licensed firearms dealer. That's because many licensed firearms dealers in the state "are unwilling to conduct the transfer under such conditions," they argued.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers released a statement on Friday saying that his office would pursue court rulings on the gun legislation “as expeditiously as possible.”

“Colorado citizens, and law-abiding gun owners in particular, deserve such clarification,” Suthers said in the statement.

The state has 64 sheriffs, said Chris Olson, executive director of the County Sheriffs of Colorado. The lawsuit is being brought forth “by individual sheriffs” and his organization is not a party to the suit, he said.

At least one lawman has said that deciding which laws are constitutional should stay out of the hands of Colorado’s sheriffs.

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson, whose county includes the Aurora movie theater where 12 people were killed last year, released a statement in January pushing back against sheriffs who said they would not enforce new gun laws.

“Public safety professionals serving in the executive branch do not have the constitutional authority, responsibility, and in most case, the credentials to determine the constitutionality of any issue,” Robinson said in the statement. “Law enforcement officials should leave it to the courts to decide whether a law is constitutional or not.”

Robinson identified himself as a supporter of Second Amendment rights in the statement, and said he would like to see better mental health services and stricter penalties for people who commit gun crimes.

Related:

• Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper signs landmark gun-control bills
• Colorado sheriff blasts colleagues over refusal to enforce gun laws
• After Newtown, states slow to embrace new gun laws

Will the winner of the next Powerball drawing be one of the luckiest people in the world? Or will more money really, as the man once said, mean more problems?

At a massive $600 million as of Friday afternoon, the prize was the largest estimated Powerball jackpot ever after a drawing Wednesday failed to yield a winner.

But what is a modern Croesus to do with all that dough? While some winners manage to fulfill their dreams and keep in the black, others go overboard – and some lottery winners wind up dead.

It’s the American dream with an adrenaline epidural, and no one knows how they’re going to react until their number gets called.

James A. Finley / AP file

Winners of the $224.2 million Powerball jackpot pose for a group photo in Clayton, Mo. on April 13, 2006. Sandra Hayes is third from the left.

The National Endowment for Financial Education estimates that as many as 70 percent of Americans who experience a sudden windfall will lose that money within a few years. People handed a hefty check also usually experience erratic emotions ranging from elation to resentment to anger, according to the NEFE.

Or you could wind up like the luckless Hurley of "Lost" fame.

The best way to deal with a life-changing windfall might be to stick to a budget and a routine, at least according to some past winners.

Missouri child services worker Sandra Hayes split a $224 million Powerball jackpot in 2006 with a dozen co-workers. She kept her job with the state for a month after taking a $6 million lump sum, she told The Associated Press.

“I had to adapt to this new life,” Hayes said. “I had to endure the greed and the need that people have, trying to get you to release your money to them. That caused a lot of emotional pain. These are people who you’ve loved deep down, and they’re turning into vampires trying to suck the life out of me.”

Even the biggest winner can lose it all, she told the AP: “If you’re not disciplined, you will go broke. I don’t care how much money you have.”

With unexpected riches can come unwanted publicity, too. New Jersey bodega owner Pedro Quezada made tabloid headlines with his $338 million Powerball win in March, the fourth largest jackpot ever.

Julio Cortez / AP file

Pedro Quezada, the winner of the Powerball jackpot, holds up a promotional check during a news conference at the New Jersey Lottery headquarters, on March 26, in Lawrenceville, N.J.

Then the Passaic County Sheriff’s office got a whiff of his winnings, and announced Quezada owed $29,000 in child support and had an outstanding warrant in his name.

Quezada, a father of five from the Dominican Republic, said he wanted to help others at a press conference after he turned in the lucky ticket he bought at his neighborhood liquor store.

“My family is a very humble family and we’re going to help each other out,” Quezada said as he grasped a giant yellow New Jersey Lottery check.

For still other winners, the wheel of fortune has taken a more macabre turn after they raked in their loot.

Chicago dry cleaner Urooj Khan won $1 million on a scratch-off lottery ticket last summer – then dropped stone dead of what a medical examiner later said was cyanide poisoning. The man had bought the ticket at a Windy City 7-Eleven, and said later that he tipped the clerk $100 after discovering that he had won.

Authorities dug up Khan’s body in February looking for more clues, but said it was too badly decomposed to give them a fresh lead.

Then there are the winners who take the swelling of their bank account in stride.

Cindy and Mark Hill of Missouri won half of a $587.5 million jackpot in November of 2012 – and by all accounts managed to keep their cool despite their sudden riches.

“I called my husband and told him, ‘I think I am having a heart attack,’” Cindy said at the time, according to a Missouri Powerball press release. “I think we just won the Lottery!”

They pocketed a cool $136.5 million after taxes, but as of earlier this year they hadn’t let their eyes fill with dollar signs according to an article that caught up with the fortunate duo in February.

The nouveau riche Hills paid for a new fire station and baseball field in their hometown of Camden Point, Mo., Mayor Kevin Boydston told Reuters. They gave another $50,000 toward a sewage treatment plant for local residents, he told the news agency.

“I’ve said all along that these lottery winnings could not have gone to a better couple,” Boydston said. “They are giving back to the community, just like they said they would.”

The couple’s fiscal good sense gave Mark Hill’s mom reason to brag, beyond the fact that her boy was a newly minted millionaire.

“I’m real proud of them,” Shirley Hill told Reuters. “They have stayed grounded. That’s their nature.”

Related:

• Powerball jackpot soars to $600 million
• Winner of the $338 million Powerball jackpot owes $29,000 in child support
• Powerball winners introduced to the nation: 'We're still stunned by what happened'

The start of tornado season was late but deadly, and now severe weather with the potential for twisters threatens parts of the Plains and Midwest -- including major cities -- heading into the weekend, forecasters said.

Severe thunderstorms looked likely to build over the Plains through the weekend and into Monday. There is some chance of tornadoes developing, the channel said, as moist air from the Gulf of Mexico meets a jet stream moving eastward from the Rocky Mountains.

Late afternoon thunderstorms were expected to move in over Oklahoma City and Kansas City on Sunday, Weather Channel meteorologist Michael Palmer said. More severe thunderstorms were predicted to build over St. Louis and Springfield, Mo. on Monday, he reported.

As many as 16 tornadoes struck northern Texas on Wednesday evening, leveling homes in the towns of Granbury and Cleburne and claiming the lives of six adults. One of the twisters was preliminarily classified EF-4 by the National Weather Service, meaning its winds reached speeds of 160 to 200 miles per hour.

Overall, tornadic activity has been slow this May, typically the month when twisters do some of their worst damage, said the Weather Channel’s Tom Moore.

“We’ve had a shortened season, so to speak,” Moore said, mostly due to blasts of cold air that brought a late chill to central parts of the country.

Any twisters that develop over the Plains on Saturday are likely to form in remote regions, but the foul weather could move closer to cities on Sunday, covering a wide swath from Oklahoma City and Tulsa to Joplin, Mo., and Springfield, Mo.

“I suspect that there will be some tornadoes on Sunday,” Moore said. “There’s a slight chance it could grow a little bit of a tail, that it could get down to Dallas and Fort Worth.”

Hail as large as two inches in diameter could fall from northwestern parts of Oklahoma to North Dakota on Saturday, moving into Kansas, Missouri, and Minnesota on Sunday, the Weather Channel said. The severe weather was slow moving but expected to head further eastward into the later part of next week.

Related:

• 'I couldn't stop screaming': Witnesses describe Texas tornadoes
• Search for Texas tornado survivors: Some victims 'not even near their homes'
• Texas tornadoes devastate neighborhood built by residents, Habitat for Humanity

Survivors of the tornadoes that devastated two towns in Texas on Wednesday night described their terror as the violent storm tore apart their homes, killing six people and injuring dozens more.

The last of those believed to be missing have been accounted for in the hard-hit Hood County town of Granbury, where a cluster of more than 60 homes built by Habitat for Humanity were among the worst off.

The Zapata family took refuge in the bathtub of their Granbury home as the twisters approached on Wednesday.

“I couldn’t stop screaming or crying,” Ana Zapata, 18, said of how she sheltered with her parents and two siblings under a pair of mattresses.

Full coverage from NBCDFW.com

“Feeling the walls shake and the tub under you is feeling like it is going to lift up any time,” her father Paul Zapata told KXAS. “Thank God we’re here, we’re alive.”

Joseph Youngblood, 10, was playing outside of a friend’s house in Granbury when the sirens went off. The skies darkened ahead of what the weather service said was an EF-4 tornado, meaning it packed winds of between 160 and 200 miles per hour.

“We started hearing the tornado sirens go off and then we look up at the clouds and we see the tornado twisting, so we all rushed in the bathroom,” Youngblood said. “I just went and ducked somewhere. I didn’t even care. I was so scared.”

The boy took refuge with his friend’s family in their house’s bathroom, where his friend’s father struggled to hold the bathroom door closed against the powerful winds that were collapsing the house around them.

"[The tornado] was starting to get more power and then he was, like, barely hanging on because the tornado was about to suck him outside," Youngblood told KXAS.

The Rancho Brazos and DeCordova Ranch neighborhoods in Granbury remained off limits after 97 of the 110 area homes were damages or destroyed.

“Some were found in houses. Some were found around houses,” Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds said of the people killed in the storm. “There was a report that two of these people that they found were not even near their homes, so we’re going to search the area out there.”

The dark funnels of as many as 16 tornadoes touched down in northern Texas on Wednesday evening, according to a preliminary report by the National Weather Service.

Slideshow: Tornadoes hit Texas

Ralph Lauer / EPA

A series of tornadoes ripped across northern Texas, killing six and injuring dozens more.

Launch slideshow

The less powerful EF-3 tornado struck the nearby town of Cleburne, sweeping away parts of several homes, including one belonging to the family of Geraldine Williams.

“It’s devastating. It’s been ravaged,” Williams said as she sifted debris. The roof of the house was torn clean off, and mattresses were sucked up through the ceiling and tossed down in the backyard.

“It’s just weird, it’s so indiscriminate,” Williams told KXAS. “Look, that picture is hanging. Everything in the china cabinet was intact, but then look at my dad’s study, it just went ‘poof.’”

All of the deceased were from the Rancho Brazos neighborhood, authorities have said, where the non-profit group Habitat for Humanity had constructed 61 homes.

The dead were identified on Thursday as Jose Tovas Alvarez, 34; Robert Whitehead, 60; Tommy Martin, 61; Marjari Davis, 82; Leo Stefanski, 83; and Glenda White, whose age was unknown. 

Related:

• Search for Texas tornado survivors: Some victims 'not even near their homes'
• 6 dead, 7 missing as tornadoes rip through Texas
• Texas tornadoes devastate neighborhood built by residents, Habitat for Humanity

Dozens of families who lived in homes they helped build with their own hands saw their neighborhood devastated by a tornado that struck north Texas on Wednesday night.

Habitat for Humanity, a Christian group that organizes volunteers to build homes for the needy, had worked with residents to construct 61 houses in the Rancho Brazos neighborhood that was battered by the twister in Granbury, Texas. 

Aerial footage taken Thursday showed home after home in Granbury completely demolished, with others severely damaged. Six adults have been confirmed dead after what the National Weather Service said were three tornadoes that swept through Montague and Hood counties in northern Texas.

Rancho Brazos was a “well-knit” neighborhood were people kept their lawns trimmed and their single-story homes in top shape, said Asa Maddox, 68.

Ralph Lauer / EPA

Debris is piled into a fence after a tornado tore thru the area in Granbury, Texas, USA, 16 May 2013.

“The neighborhood was pretty immaculate,” he said.

The winds that whipped up on Wednesday night spared Maddox’s 897-square-foot home, but lifted up the metal lawnmower shed in his yard and blew out the windows on a van in his driveway, he said. He and his wife took shelter in their home’s laundry room with their dog.

“I had heard the sirens going off and it was a continuous blast from the sirens, so I knew that there was some sort of a weather deal coming on,” Maddox said. “Then all of a sudden my lights went out and it started hailing, I mean everywhere from pea-sized all the way up to baseball-sized hail coming down and really hitting my roof.”

Gusts bent trees in his yard and sent debris flying toward his home, Maddox said.

“I could hear a real loud noise, and as I listened it was getting louder and louder,” Maddox said as the tornado approached his home around 8 p.m. local time on Wednesday. “I kind of peeked out around and I saw the wind was blowing real, real, real hard.”

Maddox drove out of the neighborhood in the dark Wednesday night. His home was mostly spared, he said.

“The mobile home that was on my right is there. The roof’s pretty much gone,” Maddox said. “The other side of my house is another Habitat house about the same size as mine and it was still there.”

Another Habitat-built home down the street was not so fortunate.

“It just shattered. It disappeared,” Maddox said.

A retired service technician who worked in a mobile-home factory, Maddox said he has been in the Rancho Brazos home he built with the help of Habitat for Humanity volunteers since 2009. It was a “joyous occasion” when he moved into the home equipped with all-new appliances, he said. He said he has been in touch with his insurance agent and expects to be back on his feet soon.

“I thank God for sparing my house and myself, and I feel real, real bad about the people who lost their house, lost everything,” he said. “If there was a way that I could help them I would.”

Habitat for Humanity volunteers were working to finish two more homes for waiting families on the day the twister struck, said Michelle Kennedy, assistant director for Trinity Habitat for Humanity, a nearby affiliate that was supporting the local Hood County Habitat organization on Thursday.

“The house that was under construction this week survived,” Kennedy said. “The house that was ready to dedicate on Saturday was completely destroyed.”

Kennedy said she helped one homeowner who collapsed in tears in the hallway of Granbury’s First Christian Church, where about 50 Rancho Brazos residents took shelter with help from the Red Cross.

“It’s devastating,” Kennedy said.

“The thing that’s different about Habitat is that families actually work in the building of the homes,” she said. “They have a deep interest not only in their homes but in the community. This devastation, it almost gives them a sense of hopelessness.”

Habitat of Hood County’s newsletter recounts the work done by its volunteers over the years, including some overseas. Families contribute at least 300 hours of work to building the home they will move in to, according to the newsletter. Each house costs about $50,500 to build, according to the group's website.

Volunteers from Hood County also began partnering with Habitat for Humanity Kyrgyzstan in 2003, according to a post on the non-profit’s website. The Texans helped build homes for nearly two dozen families in Kyrgyzstan, HFH Hood County executive director Carol Davidson said in the post.

Related:

• 6 dead, 7 missing as tornadoes rip through Texas
• Aftermath of deadly EF-4 tornado

North Texas residents took in the devastation on Thursday wreaked by a series of tornadoes that killed six and injured dozens more in what Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds described as a “nightmare” scenario.

Seven of 14 people who had previously been unaccounted for had checked in by Thursday morning, Deeds said at a press conference on Thursday. About 100 people were reported injured and as many as 250 were homeless after the swarm of twisters that ripped up trees and knocked down homes on Wednesday evening.

The six deceased were all adults, Deeds said. There have been no reports of injuries to first responders, the sheriff said.

“Everything’s running smooth, everything’s looking good,” Deeds said of recovery efforts on Thursday.

Full coverage from NBCDFW.com

Granbury, a town of 8,000 about 65 miles southwest of Dallas, was thought to be among the worst-hit areas. Images of the town revealed leveled homes, badly damaged cars, uprooted trees and downed power lines.

Nineteen buildings and 17 mobile homes were destroyed in Hood County, the sheriff’s office said in an initial damage assessment on Thursday. Seventeen more buildings showed major damage, while more than 40 showed minor damage including to windows and roofing shingles.

“It's rough, very rough. Everything's demolished," a resident told KXAS as she hurried away from the neighborhood with her arms around a child. "It was like hell."

Mike Fuentes / AP

Johnny Ortiz, left, and James South carry Miguel Morales, who was injured in a tornado, to an ambulance in Granbury, Texas, on Wednesday.

The six people who were confirmed dead were in the Rancho Brazos neighborhood on the outskirts of Granbury, Deeds said. He added that the homes there were mostly built within the past five years by Habitat for Humanity.

“I had three different storms that came through but this is the worst one,” Deeds said.

The tornadoes swept through the towns of Granbury and nearby Cleburne, causing “heavy damage,” Deeds said. The search for other people who might have gotten caught up in the storm continued with day break.

“I’ve been assured by my deputies on the scene that they’re pretty confident with the six that they found, but there was a report that two of these people that they found were not even near their homes. So we’re going to have to search the area out there,” Deeds said.

The tornado that hit Granbury was rated EF-4 by the National Weather Service in a preliminary report, meaning that winds reached between 160 and 200 miles per hour.

The tornadoes seemed to have caused less damage in Cleburne, where Mayor Scott Cain told KXAS. The town did “have the potential for some injuries,” Cain said.

The National Weather Service reported three tornadoes across Montague and Hood counties. Storm surveys to determine the extent of the damage were planned for Hood, Johnson, Montague, and Parker counties on Thursday, the weather service’s Dallas-Fort Worth office announced. At least ten tornadoes touched ground across Texas on Wednesday evening according to Mark Fox, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Some witnesses have said the tornado that swept through Johnson County may have been as much as a mile wide. While that twister that hit Granbury was smaller, it struck a more populated area and was “just as destructive,” according to Fox.

People in the affected areas had a little more than the national average of 13 minutes warning before the tornadoes struck, according to the National Weather Service.

“The warning came well before the tornadoes,” Fox said. Residents of Montague County were alerted about 15 to 30 minutes before the storm struck, and in Hood County a warning was issued 25 minutes before the tornado touched down.

Nearly forty patients were taken to Lake Granbury Medical Center and 18 discharged, with the majority of injuries including cuts, broken bones, and some head injuries. A total of eight patients were admitted to the emergency room at the Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth. Two of the patients were in critical condition as of 4 a.m. local time.

“I’ve been at LGMC for over 12 years, and we have never seen a community catastrophe with as many injuries as we did through last night,” said Kyle McCombs, chief of staff at Lake Granbury Medical Center, in a press release. “However, these are the types of disasters that our medical team continuously prepares for.”

Relocation centers have been set up Granbury Methodist and First Christian churches in Hood County.

The tornado outbreak was by far the year's deadliest, the weather service said. Prior to Wednesday night, there had been three fatal tornadoes this year, killing one person each in Georgia, Mississippi and eastern Texas.

Anita Foster of the American Red Cross, which opened two shelters in Granbury, told KXAS that 42 people had spent the night in the shelters. She added that only a quarter of people who are left homeless in such disasters typically seek shelter with the Red Cross, indicating that many more had been affected.

"We’re going to have a lot of people who are going to need some help," she said, adding, "It was a really frightening evening. It was a devastating event for our community."

The tornadoes, normal for this time of year, formed as the warm, moist air of the Texas springtime encountered an upper level storm between Wichita and Dallas, Fox said. A few thunderstorms hung over the state on Thursday but the weather system headed eastward for the most part, he said.

Severe weather was expected to sweep into some parts of the Midwest and Plains states with the potential for tornadoes heading into the weekend, the Weather Channel reported.

About 60 departures have been canceled and 70 flights diverted from Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport, spokesman David Magana told the Associated Press.

NBC News' John Newland and Andrew Rafferty contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Thu May 16, 2013 12:39 AM EDT

Hundreds of guns are being swapped for gift cards in Phoenix, where two anonymous donors have given $100,000 apiece to help fund what some say may be the city’s last series of gun buybacks.

It’s the third buyback the city has held in May, racing to take unwanted guns off the hands of residents before a new state law goes into effect that would require police to resell any lost, forfeited or abandoned firearms they receive.

“Recently I received a phone call from an individual who was motivated by the success of the Phoenix gun buyback program,” city Mayor Greg Stanton said on Tuesday. “That donor has made a donation also in the amount of $100,000.”

“These are people that are motivated by Newtown that wanted to do something positive for the community,” Stanton said of the anonymous donors, referring to the December shooting that left 26 people, most of them children, dead in a Connecticut elementary school.

Residents who want to get rid of their guns are asked to bring unloaded firearms to one of three neighborhood churches on Saturday, according to the Phoenix Police Department. Handguns, shotguns and rifles can be exchanged for a $100 grocery store gift card. Assault weapons get a $200 gift card.

The buybacks were organized in conjunction with Arizonans for Gun Safety and the Phoenix Police Department. Police say they collected 803 guns on the first weekend, and bought back 176 more a week later before running out of money.

That first round of buybacks held on May 5 also was funded by an anonymous donation to Arizonans for Gun Safety.

“That first day that we did it was unbelievably successful, we almost exhausted our gift cards on the first day,” city police spokesman Sgt. Steve Martos told NBC News.

While critics have said the buybacks will do little to reduce gun crimes in the city, the mayor has said the program is intended to be just one step toward preventing violence on Phoenix’s streets.

“I respect the Second Amendment,” Stanton said when he announced the buybacks in his State of the City address in February. “This buyback will take steps to make Phoenix safer without curtailing the rights of responsible gun owners.”

Guns collected will be assessed for historical value and to determine whether they were lost or stolen, according to Phoenix police. After that, the guns will be turned over to a company that melts them down, said Martos.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed the law in April requiring police to resell any firearms they collect to a federally licensed firearms dealer. That law will go into effect 90 days after the current legislative session ends, Martos said, and would make it “counterproductive” for the city to carry out buybacks in the future.

“The whole intent is to take unwanted guns off the street, process them, and then ultimately destroy them,” Martos said.

The law was supported by pro-gun groups.

The National Rifle Association said in a letter to Brewer before the bill was signed that reselling seized guns “would maintain their value, and their sale to the public would help recover public funds,” the Associated Press reported.

“However, this measure would ensure that taxpayer resources are not utilized to pursue a political agenda of destroying firearms,” the NRA’s Brent Gardner said in the letter supporting the bill, according to the AP.

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