Tornadoes and Flooding in South and Midwest Kill at Least 9

CANTON, Texas — At least nine people were killed by tornadoes or flooding this weekend in a series of storms in the South and Midwest that also brought a rare late-season blizzard to western Kansas on Sunday.

Tornadoes hit several small towns in East Texas, killing four people. Three people were killed by flooding and winds in Arkansas, and officials said they were searching for two more people. Rushing water swept away a car, drowning a woman in Missouri, and a death was reported in storms that raked Mississippi on Sunday morning.

Flooding closed part of Interstate 44 near Hazelgreen, Mo., and officials said it would be at least a day before the highway reopened. Interstate 70 in western Kansas was closed as crews waited for snow falling at 3 to 4 inches an hour being blown by 35-mile-per-hour winds to subside.

Rescuers in northwest Arkansas on Sunday continued to look for an 18-month-old girl and a 4-year-old boy who were in a vehicle swept off a bridge by floodwaters in Hindsville, the Madison County sheriff’s office said.

Also in northwest Arkansas, a 10-year-old girl drowned in Springdale, and the body of a woman who disappeared while riding an inner tube on Saturday was found in a creek in Eureka Springs. In the state’s east, a 65-year-old woman in DeWitt was struck and killed in her home by a falling tree, officials said.