At least four people have been killed during a tornado in Texas, reports say, bringing the number of deaths from severe storms that have lashed the US’s south in recent days to 21.
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The full extent of damage in Texas is not yet known along a 40-mile stretch from the south of Dallas to the north-east of the city, although there were reports of strong winds blowing the roofs off homes, mangling vehicles, damaging churches, downing power lines and toppling trees.
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It was here that authorities confirmed eight fatalities, adding that 15 people were taken to hospital with injuries. Urbina said the extent of the damage was uncertain but that nearby roads had been shut due to debris and that the damage to the homes was likely extensive enough to render some “inhabitable”. Bishop says the tornado outbreak at this time of the year for North Texas occurs “from time to time… but it’s certainly not something that happens regularly”.
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The twisters – accompanied by torrential rain, wind and some hail – were part of a weather system that could produce major flooding from north Texas through eastern Oklahoma, eastern Kansas, western Arkansas and parts of Missouri.
The tornado’s trajectory was headed toward downtown Dallas but WFAA television said that it appeared to have lifted off the ground at it moved north. The Dallas Mavericks NBA game was delayed by 30 minutes because of the storm.
The Ellis County Emergency Management Agency says about 40 homes have been damaged or destroyed.
“It’s going to be quite risky for anyone exposed to these elements”, Rubin-Oster said.
Snow fell as the Sun Bowl college football game between Miami and Washington State Saturday afternoon in the Mexican border city of in El Paso, which is forecast to get 6 to 8 inches of snow from the storm.
Days of tumultuous weather have led to 29 deaths overall – those in Texas plus a total of 18 in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Arkansas. A part of Interstate 70 was closed near St. Louis on Sunday because of water over the roadway, and KYTV reported that authorities recovered the body of a driver from a creek in the southwest part of the state on Saturday.
Bentley visited the town in southern Alabama on Saturday and stopped in at Elba Elementary, where people had taken shelter from the flood waters.
Ranager Tyler and his son waded into flood water Christmas night and used rope to pull an 11-year-old boy out after his family’s vehicle was swept away near Pinson, about 15 miles northeast of Birmingham. Cars that had been in driveways ended up inside homes after the tornado barreled through, witnesses said. The boy was later reunited with his family.
Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn confirms two bodies were found Saturday morning in Benton County.
In California, high winds fanned a wildfire that closed parts of the much-traveled US 101 northwest of Los Angeles and forced evacuations, fire officials said.
Garland resident Pat McMillian said the tornado left neighborhoods in darkness.
The flooding is the result of heavy downpours that have thrashed the south-eastern U.S. since Wednesday, bringing record rainfalls in some areas. Four inches of rain walloped the city of Mobile, Alabama, on Wednesday – smashing the previous record of 2.2 inches set in 1990. At least three people who died were found in vehicles, he said.
Two other people died at a gas station that was destroyed in Copeville, the station reported, and one person was killed in Blue Ridge.
The Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles are bracing for what National Weather Service forecasters are calling a “historic blizzard”. Temperatures in the eastern third of the country could set numerous records Sunday, Rubin-Oster said.
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The wet and snowy conditions come after a Christmas Day of unseasonable warmth on the East Coast, with record-high temperatures set or tied in several cities, including NY.
