At least 18 people, including two children aged two and five, were killed after tornadoes and severe storms ripped through Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma over Memorial Day weekend.
Seven of the fatalities, including the children, were in Cooke County, Texas, as a deadly twister ravaged through a trailer park on Saturday night.
According to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the two children who died were apart of the same family.
‘When they woke up yesterday, they had no way of knowing the family would be literally crushed by this horrific storm,’ Abbott said.
During a news conference on Sunday, Abbot said that about 100 people were injured by the tornado and that the exact death toll is ‘hard to tell with certainty.’
A home is seen filed with rubble after part of the roof was ripped off from the intense twister in Claremore, Oklahoma
A car’s windshield was seen completely shattered and left with a gaping hole on Sunday morning in Valley View, Texas
A giant tornado is seen forming in Windhorst, Texas is seen on Saturday in the middle of dark skies
The mayor added that more than 200 homes and buildings were demolished with over a 100 others left damaged.
‘I’d be shocked if those numbers do not increase,’ he said.
Texas residents were seen sifting through their homes that were mangled by the weekend tornado.
A car’s windshield was seen completely shattered and left with a gaping hole on Sunday morning in Valley View, Texas.
At least eight people were killed in Arkansas, including a 26-year-old woman who was found dead outside a demolished home in Olvey, a small community in Boone County.
Three people died in Benton County, Arkansas, CBS reported, with officials confirming that multiple others were injured.
Two people were also killed in Mayes County, Oklahoma due to the severe weather overnight, though details weren’t immediately provided by the county’s deputy director of emergency management Mike Dunham. Six others were injured.
People were pictured staring in awe at damage at First Baptist Church in Claremore, Oklahoma on Sunday morning.
People were pictured staring in awe at damage at First Baptist Church in Claremore, Oklahoma on Sunday morning
A woman is seen trying to salvage what’s left of her home as she finds a Guadalupe Virgin statue in the rubble in Valley View, Texas
Cars are seen piled on top of each other amongst loads of other rubble after the tornado rolled through in Texas
Kevin Dorantes, 20, was on his way back to the Valley View neighborhood to search for his father and brother when he came across a family who lost their entire home.
He saw a father and son trapped under a pile of debris as other rushed to help them.
‘They were conscious but severely injured. The father’s legs were snapped,’ Dorantes told AP News.
By Sunday evening, more than 80,000 customer in Arkansas were left without power, while Missouri had more than 90,000 without power.
Texas reported about 27,000 power outages, while 3,000 were reported in Oklahoma, according to poweroutage.us.
Across the central US and the Midwest, the severe weather has downed power for over 480,000 people and over 110 million Americans are under warnings for the calamitous fronts.
Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington said that most of the deaths in Texas occurred in a mobile home community called FRF Estates in Valley View, where crews continue to conduct search-and-rescue operations amid ‘major damage,’ WFAA reported.
The twister also decimated the AP Travel Center in Valley View, where 60 to 80 people had driven to take shelter in the parking lot, in the bathrooms or in the Shell gas station that the storm has since reduced to rubble.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick shared a statement late Sunday morning, announcing that state emergency response units had been activated. He also gave his condolences to the victims.
‘Jan and I are praying for the first responders, families in all impacted areas, and victims who tragically lost their lives,’ Patrick wrote on X.
Outside of Cooke County, millions of Americans in mid-Mississippi and the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys are at risk of large hail storms, high-speed winds and tornadoes.
An aerial shot of extensive storm damage is seen in a shopping center in Rogers, Arkansas and distraught residents look around
The Home Town Flea Market in Roger, Arkansas is seem completely destroyed on Sunday
People in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas were also the victim of extreme weather on Saturday night, with more than 250,000 homes throughout the Plains and surrounding areas having lost power.
Currently, nearly 500,000 customers in the lower-central US and the Midwest are without electricity, with the most affected state being Kentucky as the stormy weather moves east.
More than 15 million Americans are under enhanced storm risk, most of them in big population centers like Indianapolis, Nashville, and Cincinnati.
The 108th annual Indianapolis 500 was delayed by the impending thunder and lightning, and fans were asked to exit the grandstands.
Meanwhile, local officials in Texas are picking up the pieces and continuing to search for possible victims.
Sappington told WFAA Sunday morning that he expected the number of dead in Cooke County ‘to go up.’
The nearly 80 individuals at the AP Travel Center in Valley View were trapped until the storm passed further east, Sappington said.
Some of the 20 total people that were injured were at the gas station within the travel center, but none of the injuries were life threatening.
People’s vehicles in the parking lot of the travel center were damaged or destroyed, leaving about 40 people stranded, though a bus eventually came and transported them somewhere else so they could be picked up by family members.
Other parts of Texas around the Dallas Fort Worth area saw catastrophic destruction, including nearby Denton County, where a possible tornado injured an unknown number of residents, flipped 18-wheelers and knocked down trees and powerlines, CNN reported.
Officials responded to a series of different locations, including ‘homes and RV trailer parks,’ Denton County spokesperson dawn Cobb said in a news release.
Multiple homes in the neighboring city of Celina were also damaged by Saturday’s ‘apparent tornadic activity,’ officials there said.
Fox Dallas Fort Worth spoke with a Celina resident Kim Weston, who came home after the storm only to find that her home was destroyed.
Damage is seen at a truck stop the morning after a tornado rolled through in Valley View, Texas
Weston’s mother, who also lives in the area, was trapped in her home at the time but was later rescued, Fox reported.
‘We have heard that everyone on the street is OK and unfortunately our house was a total loss, but you know we’re grateful that we’re ok,’ Weston said.
‘It was a godsend we weren’t home. the neighbor across the street had an RV and it landed on our house the only part that’s standing is where we would have been sheltered.’
A probable tornado also swept through Rogers County, Oklahoma, near the city of Tulsa.
The city of Claremore, a major municipality in that county, had ‘a lot of damage,’ authorities said, adding that electricity would be out for most residents for ‘an extended period of time.
WFAA obtained dramatic footage from two people driving straight through the tornado. They were identified as Valenia Gill and Brenda Procter Dance, and were driving south along I-35 toward the Texas town of Sanger at around 10:45 p.m. on Saturday.
‘We’re right in the middle of the tornado Brenda, what do I do? The car is shaking,’ Valenia says, as the wind whips debris into their car.
The gusts get stronger within seconds and the ladies stop the car, with Brenda repeating, ‘Cover your head, cover your head.’
Once the twister starts to die down a bit, Valenia keeps the car stopped and says, ‘I don’t want to go anywhere yet. I’m shaking.’
As the various storms move into the Midwest, forecasters are saying there is a Level 3 of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms over parts of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys into Monday morning. That area could experience anywhere from EF2 to EF5 tornadoes as well.
Foundations of home and thrown around wood and rubble are seen in a community in Texas on Sunday
A man is seen seating amongst piles of rubble on Sunday morning looking through tools
However, severe weather is lingering in the middle of the country, with a Level 4 to 5 risk of thunderstorms remaining in parts of Central and Southern Plains through Sunday morning.
The thunderstorms forecasters expect to see in the Midwest by Sunday afternoon will grow and reach areas farther south and east through the evening and the nighttime hours.
The width of the storm could stretch as north as the Great Lakes and as south as bits of Louisiana and the panhandle of Florida.
This means major airport hubs in Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Nashville could be battered with heavy rain and lightning, leading to canceled and delayed flights on Memorial Day Weekend.
Record-breaking heat waves will also be coming to the southern US during the holiday weekend.
Houston, New Orleans, Miami, Mobile, Alabama; Tampa, Florida, and Charleston, South Carolina, are cities where temperatures will feel more like July than late May, CNN reported.
Daily highs exceeding 115 degrees are possible in some areas, the Storm Prediction Center said.
