Tornadic winds wreaked havoc in North Dakota, toppling nearly four dozen train cars from their tracks amidst a storm system that triggered reports of five tornadoes across the Dakotas.
A spokesperson for BNSF Railway, Kendall Sloan, stated that a train, halted due to a tornado warning on Wednesday night near Steele, North Dakota, had 43 empty coal cars derailed by intense winds. Fortunately, there were no injuries, and the derailed cars did not contain any hazardous materials. By Thursday, BNSF cleanup crews were already on the scene working to remedy the situation.
The National Weather Service in Bismarck, North Dakota, confirmed that a tornado occurred near Steele around 8 p.m. on Wednesday evening. Earlier, another tornado had touched down at approximately 5:40 p.m., southwest of Selfridge, North Dakota, on the Standing Rock Tribal Nation.
The weather service also reported three potential tornadoes in north-central South Dakota that same night. No injuries were recorded from these incidents, though survey crews were actively assessing the damage to verify whether it was tornado-related.
Although the worst of the weather seemed to be moving out of the Dakotas, the weather service warned that severe thunderstorms could still hit parts of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin on Thursday.
