Powerful storms and possible tornadoes pummeled Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas on Saturday night, killing at least eight people, damaging homes and leaving hundreds of thousands without power.
The severe weather, including the threat of tornadoes, was moving east on Sunday. More than six million people were under a tornado watch through Sunday afternoon, including parts of Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. More than 15 million people were in a wider area with an “enhanced” risk of severe weather.
In northern Texas on Saturday, a tornado left at least five dead — three adults and two children — and at least 20 people injured, said Ray Sappington, the sheriff of Cooke County.
Three of those people were trapped in debris at a home, he said. Another person died after his home was completely blown away. “Sadly, we fear that number is going to rise,” he said, adding that some of the injured were in serious condition.
Emergency responders were still searching for people who could be trapped in the debris, he said. At least 60 people had been stranded after a Shell truck stop in Cooke County was severely damaged, and several people sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
The tornado snapped power poles and severely damaged structures in an area about four miles in length, Sheriff Sappington said. It could take more than a week to fully restore electricity to the area, he added.
“Today we are waking up to a huge mess, and devastation,” he said.
In Oklahoma, two people were killed in the city of Pryor, northeast of Tulsa, as a result of overnight storms, the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management said on Sunday.
In Arkansas, one person died in Benton County and multiple people were injured, according to local authorities, who said in a briefing on Sunday morning that the area had been hit by probable tornadoes. Officials declared a disaster in the county, with Decatur and Rocky Branch among the hardest hit areas.
“There has been some structural damage to some businesses and residences,” Keith Foster, a spokesman for the Rogers police department, said in an email. At least three businesses had major damage, he said, and local gas companies were responding to an “overwhelming” amount of calls over gas leaks.
At Lake Ray Roberts Marina in Denton County, Texas, north of Dallas, a tornado damaged boats, boat houses and a fuel dock, and overturned several recreational vehicles on Saturday evening.
“There is so much damage, we don’t even know where to start,” the marina said on Facebook on Sunday, noting there were no serious injuries.
In Oklahoma, trees and power lines were knocked down by a possible tornado, cutting off electricity and leaving some roads inaccessible, the authorities in Rogers County said on social media. Power was out in Claremore, a city about 30 miles northeast of Tulsa, and would remain so “for an extended period of time,” according the city’s police department. “There is a lot of damage from tonight’s storm,” the police said.
In all, nearly 400,000 customers were without power in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Texas Sunday morning, according to the site PowerOutage.us, which tracks utilities information across the country.
The United States has come under an onslaught of destructive storms in the past week, with at least a few reports of tornadoes each day.
Five people died and part of a city was obliterated in Iowa on Tuesday after the southwestern part of the state was swallowed by a system that produced a powerful tornado that carved a 43-mile path and packed winds of at least 185 miles per hour.
