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Tornado survivors in Joplin, Missouri are reaching out to help the victims of yesterday's devastating Oklahoma storm.  

Officials in the southwest Missouri city have brought together a team of public safety employees that they are sending to the tornado-stricken town of Moore, Oklahoma.

More than 150 people died when Joplin was devastated two years ago by the most deadly tornado in U.S. history.

A team of about a dozen Joplin area police and firefighters have been assembled to assist in Moore.

Meantime, more severe weather is in the forecast for parts of the central United States already reeling from powerful tornadoes this week.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., says golf ball-sized hail, powerful winds and isolated, strong tornadoes could strike areas of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma on Tuesday. The area at risk does not include Moore, Okla., where dozens of people were killed in a monstrous tornado Monday.

Forecasters say the greatest risk for severe weather Tuesday includes the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The National Weather Service is predicting flash flooding in parts of Arkansas and Louisiana as the storm system dumps several inches of rain in a short time frame Tuesday afternoon.

In Moore, where search and rescue operations continue, showers and thunderstorms are expected Tuesday with heavy rainfall.

   

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Officials at two hospitals say they're treating nearly 60 patients, including more than a dozen children, after a massive tornado hit suburban Oklahoma City.

Integris Southwest Medical Center spokeswoman Brooke Cayot (KAY'-ot) said 10 of 37 patients being treated at that facility Monday are listed in critical condition. Twelve are in serious and 15 others are listed in fair or good condition.

Five of the patients are children, including two who came from the Plaza Towers Elementary School, where an Associated Press photographer saw several children being pulled from the rubble. Cayot could not confirm the children's conditions.

Spokesman Scott Coppenbarger says another 20 patients of various ages are being treated at OU Medical Center. He says eight of them are children.

 MOORE, Okla. (AP) - Neighborhoods are flattened and buildings are on fire after a mile-wide tornado moved through the Oklahoma City area.

Television footage on Monday afternoon showed homes and buildings that had been reduced to rubble in Moore, Okla., south of Oklahoma City. Footage also showed vehicles littering roadways south and southwest of Oklahoma City.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

The suburb of Moore was hit hard by a tornado in 1999. The storm had the highest winds ever recorded near the earth's surface.

   There are no immediate reports of damage after four earthquakes rattled central Oklahoma overnight.

   The U.S. Geological Survey reports that an earthquake and a series of aftershocks began about 1:45 a.m. Central Time with a magnitude 3.0 quake centered about 3 miles west-southwest of Chandler, Oklahoma.  

   That was followed a few minutes later by a magnitude 4.3 quake near Oklahoma City. US Geological Service puts the epicenter of the quake 7 miles east-northeast of Luther, Oklahoma, and about 29 miles east-northeast of Oklahoma City.  

   At 2:15 a.m. the ground shook again.  This time a 2.8 magnitude quake struck about 54 miles east of the capital, followed a minute later by a 3.3 magnitude temblor about 4 miles east of Luther.  

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing an Oklahoma woman in 1999 as part of a three-state killing spree is scheduled for execution.

Steven Ray Thacker is to be put to death at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for the December 1999 killing of Laci Dawn Hill in Mayes County.

Thacker - who waived his clemency hearing - would be the first person executed in Oklahoma this year.

Prosecutors say Thacker killed Hill after answering a newspaper ad she and her husband had placed to sell a pool table - then later killed Forrest Boyd in Missouri and Ray Patterson in Tennessee in the 10 days following Hill's slaying.

Thacker also faces a death penalty for the Tennessee slaying and life in prison in Missouri.

Charges could be filed Wednesday against the man police believe murdered an Oklahoma woman whose baby was found abandoned in a Breckenridge Hills apartment building in January. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that police have arrested a man who reportedly had a previous relationship with the victim, Ebony Jackson.

Investigators believe Jackson was killed in the suspect's north city home, not far from where her body was found stuffed in the trunk of her own car. The paper reports that the suspect's current girlfriend lives in the apartment building where Jackson's baby was found.