At least 5 killed as tornadoes and storms sweep across southern US
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LOS ANGELES – States across the southern United States were assessing storm damage on Friday after severe weather and a ferocious series of tornadoes swept across the region.
At least five people were killed, including three in Texas, the authorities said.
Three people died and more than 75 others were injured in Perryton, a city in northern Texas where a mobile home park took a direct hit from a tornado, fire chief Paul Dutcher told NBC News.
He told CNN that one person died in the trailer park and two others died downtown, and that one person was missing.
About 200 homes and the town firehouse were destroyed, and infrared-equipped drones were surveying the damage, he said.
Officials in Perryton, about 185km north-east of Amarillo, Texas, could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.
The Perryton Fire Department said on Facebook late on Thursday that the fire station “took a direct hit”, but that its trucks and ambulances were still operable.
About 50 to 75 patients were treated at Ochiltree General Hospital in Perryton, hospital administrator Kelly Judice said by telephone.
Their injuries ranged from cuts to traumas, she added, and 10 patients with life-threatening injuries were sent to larger facilities in Amarillo.
The tornado devastated a mobile home community in a north-western section of the city, where it flipped over some mobile homes and split them in half.
Residents combed through clothing and other personal belongings that had been caught in barbed wire that surrounded the trailer park.
Videos and photographs of the area posted on social media by a CBS News journalist appeared to show flattened buildings, flooding and damaged vehicles.
The National Weather Service said a tornado had been confirmed north of Perryton.
About 200 homes and the town firehouse were destroyed, and infrared-equipped drones were surveying the damage.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
One resident who hid in the back corner of her home’s bathroom with her two children said that the tornado lasted between two and five minutes.
Others said the tornado sounded like a loud grumbling from the sky.
On Friday afternoon, residents were huddling inside what was left of their demolished homes, surrounded by rubble and water.
The tornado devastated a mobile home community in a north-western section of the city, where it flipped over some mobile homes and split them in half.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Another person was killed in north-western Florida on Thursday night when at least one confirmed tornado struck Escambia County, causing a tree to fall and hit a home, county officials said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a man was killed in Madison County, Mississippi, when a tree fell on him on Friday morning, a fire official there said. NYTIMES
