3 people dead and dozens injured after tornado ripped through a town in the Texas Panhandle
CNN —
At least three people were killed and dozens were hospitalized after a tornado ripped through a town in the Texas Panhandle on Thursday afternoon, nearly leveling some buildings and prompting power outages.
Two of the fatalities happened in the downtown business district of Perryton and another person died in a trailer park in the northeast part of the city, fire chief Paul Dutcher told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota.
The storms also sent between 75 and 100 people to the hospital, Ochiltree General Hospital Interim CEO Kelly Judice told CNN on Thursday.
The injured had “head injuries, collapsed lungs, broken legs, major lacerations—a little bit of everything,” Judice said.
A view of a damaged site in Perryton as the town gets struck by a tornado in Texas on Thursday in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. Sabrina Devers/TMX/Reuters
The aftermath left behind damaged homes and businesses in the town of some 8,000 residents, including the local fire department and EMS as well as multiple mobile homes, according to Dutcher.
“Many of our trucks are pretty badly damaged,” the fire chief said.
Additionally, the city’s power facilities have been shutoff for safety purposes, according to Xcel Energy.
“Transmission lines supplying the city with electricity have sustained damage and many lower voltage distribution lines are down in the city,” said Wes Reeves, a spokesperson for Xcel Energy.
“Xcel Energy personnel are working to ensure the safety of Perryton residents and first responders. An estimated time of restoration is not yet available,” he added.
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.
Resources from surrounding areas have poured into the city to provide much-needed assistance.
A tank truck gets partially submerged in water in Perryton. Sabrina Devers/TMX/Reuters
Officials in Beaver County, Oklahoma, sent fire, law enforcement and EMS units to help, according to the county’s emergency manager Keith Shadden.
Neighboring city officials in Stinnett, Texas, also began sending officers and EMS crews. The sheriff’s office in Hutchinson County — which includes Stinnett — also sent rescue and emergency operations following the “devastating tornado,” according to a Facebook post from the office.
Medical help also came from staff at nearby hospitals who swiftly aided up to 100 people after the tornado struck, Judice said.
“A few of them took patients to their hospitals, most of the staff just stayed here and worked,” she added.
On Thursday, there were two tornado reports in Texas, four in Oklahoma and one in Michigan, according to the National Weather Service, with the tornado in Perryton being the most significant.
‘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 told CNN.
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, told CNN.
“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.”
Source: CNN
