Powerful storms killed at least 11 people and left a wide trail of destruction on Sunday across Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas after obliterating homes and destroying a truck stop where drivers took shelter during the latest deadly weather to strike the central United States.
Seven deaths were reported in Cooke County, Texas, near the Oklahoma border, where a tornado on Saturday night plowed through a rural area near a mobile home park, officials said. Storms also caused damage in Oklahoma, where guests at an outdoor wedding were injured. Tens of thousands of residents were without power across the region.
“It’s just a trail of debris left. The devastation is pretty severe,” Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington told The Associated Press.
The dead included two children, ages two and five, the sheriff said. Storms also destroyed a nearby truck stop, where dozens of people had rushed to take shelter.
The dead in Texas included three family members who were found in one home near the small community of Valley View, Sappington said.
Hugo Parra, who lives in Farmers Branch, north of Dallas, said he rode out the storm with about 40 to 50 people in the bathroom of a gas station.
“A firefighter came to check on us and he said, ‘You’re very lucky,'” Parra said. “The best way to describe this is the wind tried to rip us out of the bathrooms.”
Multiple people injured
Officials said multiple people were transported to hospitals by ambulance and helicopter in the Texas county of Denton, but they did not immediately know the full extent of the injuries.
At least two people were reported killed in Arkansas, including a 26-year-old woman who was found dead outside a destroyed home in Olvey, a small community in Boone County, according to Daniel Bolen with the county’s Office of Emergency Management.
Another person died in Benton County, Arkansas. Melody Kwok, a county communications director, said multiple other people were injured and that emergency workers were still responding to calls.
“We are still on search and rescue right now,” she said. “This is a very active situation.”
Officials also confirmed two deaths in Mayes County, Okla. Details about the dead were not immediately available, said Mike Dunham, the county’s deputy director of emergency management.
Recent storm damage across states
The destruction continued a grim month of deadly severe weather in the nation’s midsection.
Tornadoes in Iowa this week left at least five people dead and dozens injured. The deadly twisters have spawned during a historically bad season for tornadoes, at a time when climate change contributes to the severity of storms around the world. April had the second-highest number of tornadoes on record in the country.
In Texas, a tornado crossed into Denton County, north of Dallas, overturning tractor-trailers and halting traffic on Interstate 35 late Saturday, county spokesperson Dawn Cobb said. A shelter was opened in the rural town of Sanger.
Sappington said at least 60 to 80 people were inside a highway truck stop, some of them seeking shelter, when the storm barrelled through, but there were no serious injuries.
Daybreak began to reveal the full scope of the devastation. Aerial footage showed dozens of damaged homes, including many without roofs and others reduced to rubble.
Residents woke up to overturned cars and collapsed garages. Some residents could be seen pacing around and sorting through scraps of wood, assessing the damage. Nearby, neighbours sat on the foundation of a wrecked home.
Power outages
At the height of the storms, more than 24,000 homes and businesses lost power in Oklahoma, according to the state Office of Emergency Management. The agency also reported extensive damage from baseball-sized hail and multiple injuries at an outdoor wedding that was being held in rural Woods County.
Meteorologists and authorities issued urgent warnings to seek cover as the storms marched across the region overnight. “If you are in the path of this storm take cover now!” the National Weather Service office in Norman posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
April and May have been a busy month for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest. Iowa was hit hard last week, when a deadly twister devastated Greenfield. Other storms brought flooding and wind damage elsewhere in the state.
In Indiana, the start of the Indianapolis 500 was delayed as a strong storm pushed into the area — forcing Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials to evacuate about 125,000 race fans who had already arrived.
Track president J. Douglas Boles said it would take track drying equipment about two hours to dry the four-kilometre (2.5-mile) oval, but the expectation is that the race would begin roughly four hours late and that all 200 laps would be completed before dark.
“Our plan all along has been to get the Indianapolis 500 in today, and I believe we are on track to do that,” Boles said.
