A tornado tore through the Texas Panhandle town of Perryton on Thursday, killing three people, injuring dozens more and causing widespread damage as another in a series of fierce storms carved its way through Southern states.
Elsewhere, CBS Mobile, Alabama affiliate WKRG-TV cited Escambia Fire Rescue as confirming one fatality off Coker Land in Pensacola due to a tree falling on a home during storms. Flooding and power outages were reported in Pensacola.
Tornado warnings were issued for many parts of the Panhandle region as the overnight period wore on.
Roughly 256,000 customers were without electricity in Texas and Oklahoma as of 3 a.m. EDT, according to the Poweroutage.us website. Some 28,000 more were in the dark in Louisiana.
The National Weather Service in Amarillo confirmed that a tornado hit the Perryton area shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday. But there was no immediate word on its size or wind speeds, meteorologist Luigi Meccariello said.
The fire department in nearby Booker, Texas said Perryton “was hit hard tonight. 3 confirmed deaths, 56 injured, and at least 2 missing. Many people are going to need a lot of help.”
Perryton Fire Chief Paul Dutcher said at least one person was killed in a mobile home park that took a “direct hit” from a tornado. Dutcher said at least 30 trailers were damaged or destroyed.
First responders from surrounding towns and cities and from neighboring Oklahoma descended on the town, which is home to more than 8,000 people and is located about 115 miles northeast of Amarillo, just south of the Oklahoma line. CBS Amarillo, Texas affiliate KFDA-TV said Multiple agencies from throughout the Texas Panhandle responded to assist Perryton.
Mobile homes were ripped apart and pickup trucks with shattered windshield were slammed against mounds of rubble in residential areas.
David Erickson / AP
Perryton’s downtown also was walloped. About two blocks of businesses were heavily damaged, including an office supply store, a floral shop and a hair salon along the town’s Main Street. A minivan was shoved into the outer wall of a theater.
With a few hours of daylight left after the storm passed through, broken windows were being boarded up.
The Ochiltree County Sheriff’s Department said it would enforce a curfew overnight because of downed power lines and other dangers that might not be visible in the dark.
Alex Driggars, a reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, posted footage to social media that he said showed Perryton City Hall and the city’s fire station, both of which appeared to have sustained significant damage.
Storm chaser Brian Emfinger told Fox Weather that he watched the twister move through a mobile home park, mangling trailers and uprooting trees.
“I had seen the tornado do some pretty serious destruction to the industrial part of town,” he said. “Unfortunately, just west of there, there is just mobile home, after mobile home, after mobile home that is completely destroyed. There is significant damage.”
Ochiltree General Hospital in Perryton said on Facebook, “Walking/wounded please go to the clinic. All others to the hospital ER.”
The hospital also said an American Red Cross shelter had been set up at the Ochiltree County Expo Center.
“We got slammed” with patients, said Kelly Judice, the hospital’s interim CEO.
“We have seen somewhere between 50 and 100 patients,” Judice said, including about 10 in critical condition who were transferred to other hospitals.
Patients had minor to major trauma, ranging from “head injuries to collapsed lungs, lacerations, broken bones,” she said.
David Erickson / AP
Chris Samples of local radio station KXDJ-FM said the station was running on auxiliary power.
“The whole city is out of power,” he said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday he had directed the state Division of Emergency Management to help with everything from traffic control to restoring water and other utilities, if needed.
By evening, the weather front was moving southeast across Oklahoma.
Elsewhere in Texas and other Southern states stretching to Florida, heat advisories were in effect Thursday and were forecast into the Juneteenth holiday weekend with temperatures reaching toward 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It was expected to feel as hot as 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
The storm system also brought hail and possible tornados to northwestern Ohio.
A barn was smashed and trees toppled in Sandusky County, Ohio, and power lines were downed in northern Toledo, leaving thousands without power. The weather service reported “a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado” over Bellevue and storms showing “signs of rotation” in other areas.
It was the second day in a row that powerful storms struck the U.S. On Wednesday, strong winds toppled trees, damaged buildings and blew cars off a highway from the eastern part of Texas to Georgia.
