A tornado ripped 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.
The National Weather Service in Amarillo confirmed that a tornado hit the area Thursday afternoon. But there was no immediate word on its size or wind speeds, meteorologist Luigi Meccariello said. “There are still reports of ongoing rescues,” he said.
He 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. At 6 p.m., firefighters were rescuing people from the rubble.
First responders from surrounding areas and from Oklahoma descended on the town, which is home to more than 8,000 people and about 115 miles (185 kilometers) northeast of Amarillo, just south of the Oklahoma line.
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.”
“Our crews are arriving on site and are assisting in removing lines from cars and across the roads. We are patrolling the transmission feeds into the city and also assessing possible damage at the main substation in town. One of the three main transmission feeds into the city was apparently undamaged, but we deenergized it for safety reasons,” Xcel Energy said in a statement.
Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to deploy state emergency response resources to meet urgent life-safety needs in Perryton.
“The State of Texas is swiftly deploying critical emergency response resources to provide all necessary support and assistance to protect Texans and help those impacted by tornadoes in Perryton,” Abbott said in a statement. “I encourage all Texans to heed the guidance of state and local officials and to take all necessary precautions to protect yourselves and your loved ones. We remain ready to quickly provide any additional resources needed over the course of this severe weather event.”
“Our crews are arriving on site and are assisting in removing lines from cars and across the roads. We are patrolling the transmission feeds into the city and also assessing possible damage at the main substation in town. One of the three main transmission feeds into the city was apparently undamaged, but we deenergized it for safety reasons,” Xcel Energy said in a statement.
Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to deploy state emergency response resources to meet urgent life-safety needs in Perryton.
“The State of Texas is swiftly deploying critical emergency response resources to provide all necessary support and assistance to protect Texans and help those impacted by tornadoes in Perryton,” Abbott said in a statement. “I encourage all Texans to heed the guidance of state and local officials and to take all necessary precautions to protect yourselves and your loved ones. We remain ready to quickly provide any additional resources needed over the course of this severe weather event.”
Ochiltree General Hospital, the area hospital, is operating on generators amid widespread power outages, hospital spokesperson Amie Marrufo. As of 3 a.m. CT, more than 220,000 homes and businesses across Texas were in the dark, according to the tracking website Poweroutage.us. In neighboring Louisiana, more than 130,000 were without power, and outages were also reported in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has deployed state emergency resources to “meet urgent life-safety needs in Perryton, Texas,” according to a news release from his office.
“We remain ready to quickly provide any additional resources needed over the course of this severe weather event,” the governor noted in the statement.
‘People lost everything today’
The tornado, which was confirmed by the NWS, cut through some of Perryton’s main sections.
“It literally hit the residential, the downtown and then the industrial as well,” storm chaser Brian Emfinger.
The worst damages he saw were in the northwest part of town, where the tornado barreled toward a mobile home park directly in its path, Emfinger explained.
“The storm produced a wall cloud very quickly, and that wall cloud tightened up very rapidly, and then it just went to the ground very quickly,” Emfinger added.
On the northeast side of town, about 300 people were sheltered inside Perryton High School after the area saw extensive damages, the school’s athletic director and football coach, Cole Underwood.
“We have the gym space, and we have the capabilities to help the people that have lost everything and we’re more than willing to do that,” he said. “Sadly, there’s just not a list of things. You think about that you need on hand, but people lost everything today.”
US Rep. Ronny Jackson, who represents Perryton, said the community needs help.
“If you are in the area, I ask that you do whatever you can to help your neighbors. Food, fuel, water, generators – anything you can.”
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