Tornado devastates Texas Panhandle town, killing 3 and injuring dozens

Buildings and vehicles show damage after a tornado struck Perryton, Texas. Photo / AP

A tornado tore through the Texas Panhandle town of Perryton on Thursday local time, killing three people, injuring dozens more and causing widespread damage as another series of fierce storms carved its way through Southern states.

The National Weather Service in Amarillo confirmed a tornado hit the area shortly after 5pm Thursday. Local officials said Thursday night that two people were missing.

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 neighbouring Oklahoma descended on the town, which is home to more than 8000 people and about 185 kilometres northeast of Amarillo, just south of the Oklahoma line.

Mobile homes were ripped apart and pickup trucks with shattered windshields were slammed against mounds of rubble in residential areas.

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 St. A minivan was shoved into the outer wall of a theatre.

With a few hours of daylight left after the storm passed through, broken windows were being boarded up.

Debris covers a residential area in Perryton, Texas. Photo / AP

The Ochiltree County Sheriff’s Department said it would enforce a curfew from midnight to 6am Friday because of downed power lines and other dangers that might not be visible in the dark.

Storm chaser Brian Emfinger told Fox Weather 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 was no immediate word on the tornado’s size or wind speeds, meteorologist Luigi Meccariello said.

Nearly 50,000 customers were without electricity in Texas and Oklahoma, according to the poweroutage.us website.

A vehicle and buildings are damaged in Perryton, Texas. Photo / AP

Ochiltree General Hospital in Perryton on Facebook said “Walking/wounded please go to the clinic. All others to the hospital ER.”

“We have seen somewhere between 50 and 100 patients,” said Kelly Judice, the hospital’s interim CEO. Those include about 10 people 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.

The hospital also said an American Red Cross shelter had been set up at the Ochiltree County Expo Center.

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.

Damaged trucks sit among debris after a tornado passed through a residential area in Perryton, Texas. Photo / AP

Texas Governor 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. The weather service said a second round of storms would continue to move through that state and parts of Texas through the evening while the risk of severe weather, including tornados, remained for the metropolitan Oklahoma City area.

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 rising toward 38C. It was expected to feel as hot as 43C.

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 US. On Wednesday, strong winds toppled trees, damaged buildings and blew cars off a highway from the eastern part of Texas to Georgia.