Powerful storms killed at least 15 people and left a wide trail of destruction 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 US.
Seven deaths were reported in Cooke County, Texas, near the Oklahoma border, where a tornado 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.
Three family members in Texas were found dead 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.”
At least five 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 emergency management office.
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.”
Two more bodies were found in Marion county, the Associated Press reports.
Aerial videos posted online from Rogers in Benton county, north-west Arkansas showed destroyed storefront, water gushing from broken pipes and fallen trees and fences in front of houses.
“The main thing going on at the moment [is] the street department is out trying to clear major roads,” 4029 News reported Keith Foster, spokesperson for Rogers police department, said.
According to PowerOutage.us, as of 1.35pm on Sunday, 97,340 customers are currently facing power outages in Arkansas.
Additionally, the smell of natural gas is prevalent, Fox weather correspondent Max Gorden reports. “It’s heavy in some places where they’ve had some gas lines broken,” he said.
Officials also confirmed two deaths in Mayes County, Oklahoma. Details about the dead were not immediately available, said Mike Dunham, the county’s deputy director of emergency management.
Meanwhile, more than 20 injuries were reported in Claremore, KOCO reports, adding that officials say that three of those injured could have life-threatening injuries.
In an announcement released on Sunday, the Oklahoma department of emergency management said that the American Red Cross has opened two shelters for residents displaced by the storms. The sites are at Memorial Heights Baptist church on Will Rogers Blvd, Claremore and Mayes county fairgrounds in Pryor.
Elsewhere, a man was killed Sunday in Louisville, Kentucky, when a tree fell on him, police said.
In a post on Twitter/X, Louisville mayor Craig Greenberg said: “Louisville, I’m sad to report we’ve had one fatality following the severe weather that just moved through the area and some structural damage reported. Please join me in holding this family in our thoughts and prayers during this difficult time – may their memory be a blessing.”
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.
Elsewhere in Denton County, a tornado overturned tractor-trailers and halted traffic on Interstate 35, county spokesperson Dawn Cobb said. A shelter was opened in the rural town of Sanger.
At least 60 to 80 people were inside a highway truck stop, some of them seeking shelter, when the storm barreled through, but there were no serious injuries, Sappington said.
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, neighbors sat on the foundation of a wrecked home.
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.
In Texas, the Denton Fire Department posted on social media that emergency crews near Dallas were responding to a marina “for multiple victims, some reported trapped.” Inaccessible roads and downed power lines in Oklahoma also led officials in the town of Claremore, near Tulsa, to announce on social media that the city was “shut down” due to the damage.
“Our hearts are extremely heavy for our friends in neighboring communities who are suffering insurmountable loss following last night’s tornadoes. The beautiful thing about Denton is the way we come together when times are tough,” Denton’s city officials said on Facebook.
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.
The Iowa homeland security and emergency management department announced that Fema disaster recovery centers are opening in Ringgold, Union and Clarke counties “to provide one-on-one assistance for people affected by the recent tornadoes and severe storms”.
In addition to being physically accessible to people with disabilities, the disaster recovery centers are equipped with assistive and adaptive technology including amplified phones, caption phones, video phones, and wheelchair ramps to ensure people can access resources.
More severe storms were predicted in Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky.
The risk of severe weather moves into North Carolina and Virginia on Monday, forecasters said.
