North Dakota Tornado Injures Nine at Oil Worker Camp

Eight of nine people injured when a tornado struck a housing camp in western North Dakota have been treated and released from the hospital, according to news reports.

The ninth person injured in Monday's storm has been airlifted to Trinity Health Hospital in Minot, N.D., NBC News reported Jerry Samuelson, McKenzie County’s emergency management director, as saying. The other eight were treated and released from McKenzie County Memorial Hospital in Watford City.

The storm, which also produced baseball-sized hail, destroyed between 12 and 15 trailers, according to NBC News. The number of people in the camp when the tornado hit is unknown.

The tornado struck the camp Monday evening at 7:50 p.m. local time about 5 miles south of Watford City, N.D. The camp is located about 30 miles southeast of Williston, N.D, according to a May 27 Associated Press report. The injured workers were in their trailers when the tornado hit.

Samuelson said crews sifted through a large amount of debris at the camp, but that he was confident that nobody was missing. He said there were a lot more trailers at the camp just a few days ago, so the situation could have been a lot worse had it happened earlier, according to the Associated Press.

“Obviously, we’re very fortunate that there are no deaths, to our knowledge,” Samuelson told the Associated Press.



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