12-year-old boy among 6 dead as tornadoes rip across Michigan and Oklahoma

Powerful storms that whipped up tornadoes killed four people in southern Michigan, including a 12-year-old boy, and two people in eastern Oklahoma on Friday, reducing homes to rubble and leaving a swath of damage

Powerful storms that whipped up tornadoes killed four people in southern Michigan, including a 12-year-old boy, and two people in eastern Oklahoma on Friday, reducing homes to rubble and leaving a swath of damage.

In Michigan, a 12-year-old boy died after succumbing to weather-related injuries. The boy’s parents called 911 to report that they could not find their son as a tornado touched down in the area, and by the time first responders arrived, the parents were providing him with first aid.

Three people were killed and 12 were injured in the Union Lake area near Union City, Michigan, after an apparent tornado hit, according to the Branch County Sheriff’s Office. About 50 miles southwest, Cass County officials reported one death and several injuries after a tornado touched down.

Tornado sirens blared as Tyler Cramer pulled into work at Menards, a home improvement store in Three Rivers, Michigan. The clouds dropped, the wind picked up, and Cramer said he and his fellow employees took off for the store’s shelter area.

“As we’re running is right when it hits, the skylights start blowing out. You can watch all the doors come off the building,” Cramer told NBC News. “You can look down the aisle ways, and we just watched the garden center on the far side of the store basically just disappear.”