Powerful storms killed at least 14 people and left widespread devastation on Sunday in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, flattening homes and destroying a truck stop where drivers were sheltering during the latest deadly storm to hit a downtown US city.
Seven of the deaths occurred in Texas, near the Oklahoma border, where a tornado tore through a rural area near a mobile home park Saturday night, according to authorities. The storms also caused damage in Oklahoma, where guests at an outdoor wedding were injured. Power was cut off to tens of thousands of residents across the region.
“Only a trace of rubble remains. The devastation is very severe,” Cook County Sheriff Ray Sappington told The Associated Press.
Authorities said several people were taken to hospitals by ambulances and helicopters in Denton County, Texas, but they did not immediately know the full extent of their injuries. Among the dead in Texas were three members of one family who were found in a home near the small community of Valley View, Sappington said.
At least five people have died in Arkansas, including a 26-year-old woman who was found dead outside a destroyed home in Olvi, a small community in Boone County, according to Danielle Bolen of the county's Office of Emergency Management.
