At least 13 dead in tornadoes and storms in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas

At least 13 people were killed and dozens more were injured when tornado-triggering thunderstorms raged through Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas on Saturday.

In Cooke County, Texas, seven people died, including two children ages 2 and 5, authorities said. A tornado devastated a mobile home park in the county.

“All that’s left is a trail of rubble. The devastation is pretty bad,” Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington told the Associated Press.

Dozens of people sought shelter at a rest stop in the small town of Valley View as the storm moved through the mostly rural county north of Dallas near the Oklahoma border. They escaped unharmed, Sappington said.

In Oklahoma, two people died, according to the emergency management office in Mayes County, about 40 miles east of Tulsa. No further details about the deaths were provided.

And in northern Arkansas, one person was killed in Benton County and another in Boone County, authorities said. Emergency crews were still responding to calls for help and authorities warned the death toll – as many as four statewide – could still rise.

“We are still engaged in search and rescue at this time,” Melody Kwok, Boone County communications director, told the Associated Press. “The situation is very tense.”

The storms have affected large parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Homes have been damaged as far south as the Dallas suburbs and as far north as Tulsa, a distance of nearly 250 miles. Cars and semi-trailers have been overturned and mobile homes have been flipped.

As the storms moved east Sunday afternoon, nearly 200,000 people were without power in Missouri and Arkansas, while 180,000 homes and businesses in Kentucky were cut off, according to the website Poweroutage.us.

The start of the Indianapolis 500 was delayed for hours due to the storms and authorities ordered the evacuation of the massive Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

With News Wire Services