'End of world' scenes in Texas amid severe Memorial Day weekend storm
Terrified Texans woke to the sound of tornado sirens last night as the latest in a series of brutal storms battered the Lone Star State, leaving a trail of destruction and damage. The storms are only the latest in a series to have tortured several states in recent weeks, with 24 people now dead as a result.
In Texas , 'extreme' hail rained down in some cities while others were under a constant barrage of rain. Many took to social media to share their fears, likening it to the 'end of the world'. The death toll of 22 also included seven deaths in Cooke County, Texas, from a tornado on Saturday that tore through a mobile home park, officials said, and eight deaths across Arkansas.
Texans described the storm as 'crazy' on social media, with one person saying they 'witnessed water going horizontal with a jet engine noise'. Another resident admitted they were 'crouched' under furniture in their kitchen while the storm raged around their home. Two people died in Mayes County, Oklahoma, which is east of Tulsa, authorities said. The injured included guests at an outdoor wedding.
The tiny Kentucky town of Charleston took a direct hit on Sunday night from a tornado that the governor said appeared to be on the ground for 40 miles. 'It's a big mess,' said Rob Linton, who lives in Charleston and is the fire chief of nearby Dawson Springs, hit by a tornado in 2021. 'Trees down everywhere. Houses moved. Power lines are down. No utilities whatsoever – no water, no power.'
More than 744,000 households suffered power cuts in Texas on Tuesday, according to Poweroutage.us, while 81,000 have gone dark in Kentucky, 41,000 in Arkansas, 22,000 in West Virginia and 21,000 in Missouri . Twelve states also reported at least 10,000 outages earlier in the day, according to PowerOutage.us.
Further east, some rural areas of Hopkins County hit by the 2021 tornado around the community of Barnsley were damaged again on Sunday night, said county emergency management director Nick Bailey. 'There were a lot of people that were just getting their lives put back together and then this,' Bailey said. 'Almost the same spot, the same houses and everything.'
Texans on social media shared videos of their hometowns being hit by constant lightning strikes as tornado sirens rang out. Videos of violent flashes punctuating surreal purple skies flooded social media as people said they had 'never seen anything like this'. Meanwhile, motorists in Dallas captured torrents of floodwater turning roads into rivers as rain lashed at their vehicles.
Further north in Carrollton, residents shared videos of torrential rain being blown in all directions across their balcony as gale-force winds whipped it into terrifying motion. Others shared videos of what looked like fire raining down as tornadoes whipped lampposts and tore electricity lines down. President Joe Biden sent condolences to the families of people who died. He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency is on the ground conducting damage assessments and he has contacted governors to see what federal support they might need..
It has been a grim month of tornadoes and severe weather in the nation's midsection. April had the second highest number of tornadoes on record in the country. Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, said a persistent pattern of warm, moist air is to blame for the string of tornadoes over the past two months. That warm moist air is at the northern edge of a heat dome bringing temperatures typically seen at the height of summer to late May.
