At least four people are dead after severe storms and tornadoes hit a wide-ranging area of the U.S., including Texas, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, and Oklahoma.
According to the Weather Channel, Three people were killed by a tornado that ripped through the heart of Perryton, Texas, a Panhandle town of 8,000 people. Another person was killed in Escambia County, Florida, when a severe storm that also produced a tornado toppled a tree onto a home, according to local news reports.
More than 100 people was evacuated from an apartment complex southwest of Pensacola, Florida, according to fox10tv. The apartment complex is located next to a creek and the water rose to the first-floor windows. More than 17 inches of rain has fallen across the Pensacola area.
The deadly tornado that ripped through Perryton, Texas, could be in rarified air for Ochiltree County, according to weather.com senior meteorologist Jon Erdman.
Only two other tornadoes since 1950 in the county had been deadly. An F1 on June 11, 1987, killed one person and an F2 on May 4, 1950, also killed one person.
The tornado hasn’t been surveyed yet, but were it to be rated EF3 or higher it would join only four other F/EF3-plus tornadoes on record in the county dating to 1950. The last one was over 33 years ago.
At least three people are dead and two more are missing after a tornado spawned in the late afternoon and ripped through the heart of town. Drone video from the scene showed many buildings damaged or destroyed. Some of them caught fire. Dozens of people were also injured.
One of the people killed was inside a mobile home that took a “direct hit,” the Perryton Fire Chief told the Associated Press. Mobile homes are particularly unsafe during a tornado.
The National Weather Service says you are 15-20% more likely to die in a manufactured home than in a permanent home during severe weather. The fire station itself was also hit by the tornado.
