Powerful storms have killed at least 15 people and left a trail of destruction in their wake as they devastated parts of the central United States.
A tornado devastated a northern rural area Texasnearly Oklahoma border, on Saturday night, killing at least seven people.
Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington said the victims included two children, ages two and five, and numerous injuries were also reported.
He said some of the many mobile homes in the area were “completely gone,” while others suffered massive damage from the storm that left a quarter-mile-wide path of destruction for three or four miles.
“It’s just a trail of debris,” he said. “The devastation is quite serious.”
The storms also killed two people and destroyed homes in Oklahoma, where guests at an outdoor wedding were injured, while at least five people were killed in Arkansasincluding a 26-year-old woman.
Separately, a man was murdered in Louisville, Kentuckywhen a tree fell on him on Sunday.
The small community of Valley View, a Cooke County town where just 800 people live, was one of the hardest hit.
Kevin Dorantes, 20, said he came across a father and son trapped under the rubble and that friends and neighbors worked to get them out.
“They were conscious but seriously injured,” he said. “The father’s leg was broken.”
He said they managed to get the father on a mattress to a truck and he and his son were taken to a nearby ambulance.
Hugo Parra collects belongings from his vehicle. Photo: AP
Hugo Parra said he took shelter with 40 to 50 people in the bathroom of a truck stop near Valley View as the storm ripped off the building’s roof and walls, shredded metal beams and left battered cars in the parking lot.
“The best way to describe this is that the wind tried to rip us out of the bathrooms,” he said.
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The full extent of the devastation began to become clear on Sunday morning as aerial images showed dozens of damaged homes, many of them roofless and others reduced to rubble, as residents woke up to overturned cars and collapsed garages.
Hundreds of thousands of customers were without power across much of the country, including Arkansas, Missouri and Texas, on Sunday, according to poweroutages.us.
In Indiana, bad weather delayed the start of the famous Indy 500 auto race.
More severe weather conditions are expected in parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, with the National Weather Service warning of damaging winds, large hail and more tornadoes in affected areas.
April and May have been busy months for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest, and Iowa was hit hard last week when a deadly tornado devastated Greenfield.
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
