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At least six people were killed when a powerful tornado ripped through a neighbourhood including a Habitat for Humanity low-income housing area in the north Texas town of Granbury on Wednesday, marking the deadliest severe storm outbreak in the US this year. |
Authorities warned the death toll could rise because seven people were missing after the storms, which struck from early evening to around dusk, flattening buildings and uprooting trees across at least four counties near the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The National Weather Service said there were reports of 10 tornadoes touching down in the area.
Hardest hit was Granbury, a town of 8,000 56km southwest of Dallas-Fort Worth.
In Hood County, where Granbury is located, spokesman Tye Bell said six people were dead, seven missing and at least 45 injured, most from a single subdivision of homes in the town.
Frank Gamez, who works in construction in Granbury, said he found a friend dead on Wednesday night as he and other people were searching the neighbourhood.
“We lost one of our friends. We found him on the ground,” Gamez said.
Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds said authorities were searching homes to try to find people who might still be trapped in the rubble.
All six of the people confirmed killed were found in Rancho Brazos, a neighbourhood of around 110 mostly single family homes on the fringe of Granbury that bore the brunt of the winds, Deeds said.
The area includes 61 Habitat for Humanity homes, the charity organisation said on its website. Habitat for Humanity, well known because former US president Jimmy Carter has long been a supporter, uses volunteers to build and repair homes for low-income residents.
Gamez said one Habitat for Humanity home that was to be officially presented to a low income family this weekend, was completely destroyed.
“There’s nothing there but concrete slabs,” he said.
Video of the area showed homes flattened, power lines down and roads blocked by debris in the area. Bulldozers were clearing roads so people could be moved out of their houses.
Other counties hit by the wave of storms were Johnson, Montague and Parker, according to Corey Mead, forecaster at the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Centre in Norman, Oklahoma.
In Parker County, about 14 homes and farms had severe roof damage and other structural damage and a few buildings were destroyed, said Parker County Judge Mark Riley. No injuries or deaths were reported.
A nurse at Bowie Memorial Hospital in Montague county, Texas said a tornado hit the local country club. There were no injuries or deaths reported in Montague county.
The winds were so strong in Johnson county that a large trailer was blown into a home and rested on a car in the town of Cleburne, Texas.
Preliminary reports showed that the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Granbury 26 minutes before the twister struck, according to Mark Wiley, emergency response meteorologist at the agency’s Forth Worth office.
This is an unusually long lead time as the average warning time is 10 to 12 minutes, he said.
Wiley said the rating of the deadly tornado would not be determined until later, but “it was a strong tornado just based on the damage”.
More severe storms could be coming to Texas, parts of Arkansas and northern Louisiana later on Thursday, said Mead. But he said the possible tornadoes would be in northeast Texas, not in the area hit on Wednesday night.