People took shelter in their bathrooms in the Midwest, and in the basement of the United States Capitol. Others surveyed splintered homes in an Ohio suburb, or were hemmed in by barricaded Oklahoma roads. Crews collected debris in Missouri that had blown over from Kansas. Phones around Fort Worth squawked as another storm tore from the sky and threatened towns in Texas.

But at last, a record-setting run of severe storms that has spawned hundreds of tornadoes across the nation over the past two weeks appeared on Wednesday to be nearing an end.