内容摘要：As police whisked him away, Khan Suri realized they wanted to deport him.

As police whisked him away, Khan Suri realized they wanted to deport him.

In St. Louis, Mayor Cara Spencer said five people died, 38 were injured and more than 5,000 homes were affected.“The devastation is truly heartbreaking,” she said.

A tornado struck in Scott County, about 130 miles (210 kilometers) south of St. Louis, killing two people, injuring several others and destroying several homes, Sheriff Derick Wheetley wrote on social media.The storms hit after the Trump administration massively cut staffing of National Weather Service offices, with outside experts worrying about how it would affect warnings in disasters such as tornadoes.The office in Jackson, Kentucky, which was responsible for the area around London, Kentucky, had a March 2025 vacancy rate of 25%; the Louisville, Kentucky, weather service staff was down 29%; and the St. Louis office was down 16%, according to calculations by weather service employees obtained by The Associated Press. The Louisville office also was without a permanent boss — the meteorologist in charge — as of March, according to the staffing data.

A piano rests atop what is left of the destroyed Sunshine Hill Baptist Church, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)A piano rests atop what is left of the destroyed Sunshine Hill Baptist Church, Sunday, May 18, 2025, in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

See more photos from the severe storms in the South and Midwest

Associated Press writers Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed to this report.In surrounding Laurel County, first responders mourned one of their own.

Fellow firefighters found the body of Laurel County Fire Major Leslie Leatherman on top of a woman he was shielding from the storm’s fury as he answered calls during the worst of the storm. The woman was yelling for help and they were in a field across from a destroyed subdivision.The injured woman turned out to be Leatherman’s wife and officials aren’t sure if he knew who he was protecting in the darkness and chaos, the fire department said

St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer said five people died, 38 were injured and more than 5,000 homes were affected by an EF3 tornado with winds up to 150 mph (240 kph) that slammed areas north and west of downtown Friday. Spencer has estimated that damages will exceed $1.6 billion.“Eight miles of pure destruction, at times a mile wide,” Spencer said at a Monday news conference. “We’re talking about thousands of buildings, thousands of families are being displaced.”