At least 4 killed in southern U.S. tornadoes | CBC News

Cleanup efforts were underway Friday morning after severe storms spawned tornadoes that left at least four dead, three in the Texas Panhandle and one in the Florida Panhandle, as another series of fierce storms carved its way through southern states.

In Perryton, Texas, Ochiltree County sheriff Terry Bouchard said three people were killed when the tornado struck Thursday afternoon.

Another person died Thursday night in the Florida Panhandle when at least one confirmed tornado cut through Escambia County, toppling a tree onto a home, county spokesperson Andie Gibson told the Pensacola News Journal.

Of the homes searched so far in Perryton, all but one of the occupants had been accounted for, so the main priority was going back over the area and the debris field to find that person, Perryton fire chief Paul Dutcher said on NBC’s Today show.

Dutcher estimated that 150 to 200 homes in the community had been destroyed and said that in the downtown area, many storefronts were totally wiped out and buildings had collapsed or partially collapsed.

Sheriff Bouchard urged residents to remain at home if possible as cleanup efforts began in the town of more than 8,000 about 185 kilometres northeast of Amarillo, just south of the Oklahoma line. The National Weather Service in Amarillo confirmed that a tornado hit the area shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday.

Perryton’s downtown 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 theatre.

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.

Widespread power outages

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 was no immediate word on the tornado’s size or wind speeds, meteorologist Luigi Meccariello said.

The storm system then moved into Oklahoma, spawning several more suspected twisters in addition to high winds and large hail.

Observations program leader Forrest Mitchell at the National Weather Service office in Norman, Okla., said survey crews were expected to head out Friday to southwest and west central Oklahoma and western North Texas to investigate possible tornadoes.

About 475,000 customers were without electricity in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma as of Friday morning, according to the poweroutage.us website.

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.

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.

On Friday, scattered strong to severe thunderstorms were forecast for parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and some other states.

Elsewhere in Texas and other southern states, including Louisiana, heat advisories were in effect Friday and were forecast into the Juneteenth holiday weekend with temperatures reaching toward 38 C. It was expected to feel as hot as 43 C.