Two people were killed, and nine were injured as a series of intense, tornado-producing thunderstorms struck across northern Illinois and northwestern Indiana late on March 10, continuing a trend of severe weather across the continental United States.

The National Weather Service said at least four tornadoes have come from just one of the Illinois thunderstorm “supercells.”

Storm chaser Rob McBay spent the midnight hours between March 10 and March 11 helping first responders work through the wreckage left by one of those twisters in a neighborhood of Kankakee, Illinois.

For three hours, he and his team worked with the nonprofit Team Dominator Storm Recovery to clear fallen limbs, downed trees, and insulation. They also deployed portable lighting units, patrolled areas inaccessible to vehicles, and helped guide more volunteers to the site.

“Honestly, I’m surprised there weren’t fatalities [in Kankakee],” he told The Epoch Times. “Some houses are completely destroyed. Most have extensive tree and roof damage. All windows are blown out.”

The two deaths occurred in northwestern Indiana. An elderly couple in Lake Village, Indiana, were killed when a tornado destroyed their home, Newton County Coroner Scott McCord said. Their names have not been released.

The National Weather Service also noted that trained spotters reported observing a tornado on the ground outside Wheatfield, Indiana, at about 8 p.m. local time after a tornado was observed briefly touching down in Livingston, Illinois.

Spotters on amateur radio, storm chasers, law enforcement officers, and emergency management all independently reported a tornado on the ground and moving across Kankakee from 6:24 p.m. to 6:59 p.m.

Possibly record-breaking hail also fell, reaching six inches in size in Kankakee, the National Weather Service reported. The state record for hail in Illinois is 4.75 inches, which fell in Minooka in June 2015.

Survey teams are still collecting meteorological and damage data to determine the exact rating and path of the tornadoes.

The fatal storms were only the northern point of a chain of severe weather that stretched across the upper Mississippi, through the Great Plains, and down to the Rio Grande, with a tornado reported in South Texas.

They follow a series of fatal storms that caused at least six deaths last week. A mother and daughter died in severe weather just outside Oklahoma City on March 5, and a tornado killed at least three people and injured 12 in Branch County, Michigan, on March 6. One death and several injuries were reported in Cass County, Michigan, on March 6.

“In over 10 years of chasing, I almost never see this level of tornado activity this early in March,” McBay said. “It feels more like late April or May. The last few years we’ve seen once-in-a-generation storms happening back-to-back, and it really feels like severe weather season is starting earlier and getting more intense every year.”

Forecasts on March 11 indicated that the wave of extreme weather is not about to let up.

Severe weather warnings have been issued for an entire swath of the nation stretching from central Pennsylvania, the Chesapeake Bay, and the western edge of New York state down to Houston, with tornado watches and warnings scattered in between.

“The risks for tornadoes and severe weather shift eastward today into the Ohio Valley/Mid-Atlantic and across the northern Gulf Coast,” the National Weather Service warned.

McBay spoke to The Epoch Times on his way home to Alabama. But he was still in a chaser mode.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see a couple of tornadoes tonight in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama,” he said. “Multiple storm chasers are currently en route to provide ground coverage and live streams, including myself.”

Jacki Thrapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.