A tornado has ripped through and leveled the Halliburton Plant in Pampa, according to the Gray County Sheriff’s Office. The oil field services giant has not provided official damage estimates. Both deputies declined to be taken to a hospital. The train was derailed near the town of Miami, Texas.
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Tornadoes roared across Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska on Monday, and more are forecast for Tuesday.
The National Weather Service will investigate those 38 storm reports to determine if any were duplicates and whether they were in fact tornadoes.
The Pampa district office had been shuttered and there were no employees at the site when the tornado hit, the company said in a statement Tuesday.
Two homes and three outbuildings – including a full shed – were damaged several miles east and southeast of Buttermilk in Comanche County.
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BNSF spokesman Joe Faust on Tuesday blamed tornadoes for the derailment of four empty cars around 7:30 p.m. Monday. Faust says the two crew members on board were not harmed. As part of the plant closure, Halliburton recently removed all chemicals stored on location to a different site. He says the 87-car train was headed to Amarillo from Wellington, Kansas. Two deputies were exposed to chemicals and treated at the scene. But he says none of the storms struck heavily populated areas. Dallas-based electric provider Oncor (ON’-kor) reported about 35,000 customers without power, mainly in North Texas as the storms moved east.
