US: At least four dead as tornado ravages Texas town, hundreds injured

At least four people died after a tornado tore through the Texas Panhandle town of Perryton, US-based media outlets reported on Friday (June 16). Reports further mentioned that hundreds of thousands of locals in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi remained without power Friday morning.

USA Today reported that three people were killed in Perryton and several were injured. Widespread damage to property was also reported. The report also noted that one person was killed in the Florida Panhandle on Thursday when a tornado ripped through Escambia County.

According to reports, the National Weather Service in Amarillo confirmed that a tornado hit the area shortly after 5:00 pm (local time) Thursday.

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In the aftermath, emergency services and first responders from surrounding towns and cities and from neighbouring Oklahoma reached the town.

Perryton’s downtown was hit pretty hard, and as quoted by The Associated Press, the Ochiltree County Sheriff’s Department said it would enforce a curfew from midnight to 6:00 am (local time) Friday because of downed power lines and other dangers that might not be visible in the dark.

Brian Emfinger, who is a storm chaser, told Fox Weather that he watched the twister move through a mobile home park, mangling trailers and uprooting trees.

He said, "I had seen the tornado do some pretty serious destruction to the industrial part of town. Unfortunately, just west of there, there is just mobile home, after mobile home, after mobile home that is completely destroyed."

As quoted by AP, meteorologist Luigi Meccariello said that there was no immediate word on the tornado’s size or wind speeds.

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Patients had minor to major trauma

According to the poweroutage.us website, about 475,000 customers were without electricity in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma as of Friday morning.

Ochiltree General Hospital in Perryton on Facebook said that "Walking/wounded please go to the clinic. All others to the hospital ER".

Kelly Judice, the hospital's interim CEO said that "we have seen somewhere between 50 and 100 patients". Those include about 10 people in critical condition who were transferred to other hospitals.

She said that patients had minor to major trauma, ranging from "head injuries to collapsed lungs, lacerations, broken bones".

Some parts of Texas were impacted by the tornado, but local reports have mentioned that elsewhere in Texas and the southern US, residents are being told to prepare for extreme heat through the weekend. The National Weather Service predicted temperatures will rise as high as110 Fahrenheit.

(With inputs from agencies)

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