Strong storms and possible tornadoes hit towns in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas on Saturday night, killing at least six people, damaging homes, overturning trucks and leaving hundreds of thousands of people stranded. power-off.
Severe weather is moving east Sunday morning. More than 15 million people are in “elevated” risk areas. severe weatherand more 800,000 people are monitoring tornadoes in parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee Sunday morning.
In north Texas on Saturday, a tornado killed at least five people – three adults and two children – and at least 20 people were injured, said Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington.
Three of those people were trapped in the rubble at the same house, he said. Another person died after his house was completely blown away. “Sadly, we fear that number will increase,” he said, adding that some of the injured were in serious condition.
He said emergency responders were still searching for people who may be trapped in the rubble and two children were still missing. At least 60 people were trapped after a Shell truck stop in Cooke County was severely damaged and several suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Chief Sappington said the tornado’s path snapped utility poles and severely damaged structures in an area about four miles long. He added it could take more than a week to fully restore power to the area.
“Today we are waking up to a situation of enormous chaos and destruction,” he said.
In Arkansas, one person died in Benton County and multiple people were injured, according to local authorities. meeting on Sunday morning that the area may have been hit by a tornado. Officials declared a state of disaster in the county, with Decatur and Rocky Branch among the hardest hit areas.
The local police department said officers were responding to people trapped after a possible tornado caused a gas leak and downed trees and power lines, causing many areas of Rogers City had a power outage.
“There was some structural damage to several businesses and residences,” Keith Foster, a spokesman for the Rogers police department, said in an email. He said at least three businesses suffered major damage and local gas companies were responding to an “excessive” number of calls about gas leaks.
In Denton County, Texas, a tornado also overturned semi-trailers and mobile homes and damaged a marina, according to a briefing from county authorities. “We can tell the damage is extensive,” Justin Stamps, police chief of Valley View, a city north of Dallas, said in an email.
In Oklahoma, downed trees and power lines from possible tornadoes could cut power and make some roads inaccessible, Rogers County authorities said Thursday. social media. Power is out in Claremore, a city about 30 miles northeast of Tulsa, and it will continue “for a long time.” according to city police department. “There is a lot of damage caused by tonight’s storm,” police said.
In total, more than 360,000 customers were without power in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Texas early Sunday morning, according to the website PowerOutage.usMonitor utility information nationwide.
In Texas, the tornado threat was lessened Sunday morning, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said speak.
However, many areas in the Great Plains are facing more extreme weather. Areas in Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee on Sunday could see large hail, damaging winds and possibly stronger tornadoes on Sunday.
The United States has been hit by an onslaught of destructive storms over the past week, with at least a few reports of tornadoes every day.
Five people died and Part of the city was wiped out in Iowa on Tuesday after the southwestern part of the state was swallowed by a system that produced a powerful tornado that carved a path 43 miles long and had winds of at least 185 miles per hour.
