Storms sweep across Texas and Oklahoma

VALLEY VIEW, Texas — Violent storms killed at least 15 people and left a wide trail of destruction in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas on Sunday, destroying homes and a rest area where dozens of people had sought shelter in a bathroom during the latest deadly storm to hit the central United States.

The storms caused the most severe damage in a region stretching from northern Dallas to the northwest corner of Arkansas. As the day progressed, the system threatened to bring more severe weather to other parts of the Midwest and to the East Coast on Monday.

Seven deaths were reported in Cooke County, Texas, near the Oklahoma border, where a tornado ripped through a rural area near a mobile home park Saturday night, authorities said. Two people were also killed and homes destroyed in Oklahoma, including guests at an outdoor wedding. Tens of thousands of residents across the region were without power.

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

Among the dead were two children, aged two and five, said the sheriff. The small community of Valley View in the Texas county is one of the worst affected areas. Three family members were found dead in a house, said Sappington.

Hugo Parra, who lives in Farmers Branch, north of Dallas, said he rode out the storm with 40 to 50 people in the rest area’s bathroom near Valley View. The storm ripped off the building’s roof and walls, damaged metal beams and left battered cars in the parking lot.

“A firefighter came to check on us and said, ‘You were very lucky,'” Parra said. “The best way to describe it is: The wind was trying to blow us out of the bathrooms.”

Several people were taken by ambulance and helicopter to hospitals in Denton County, Texas, also north of Dallas. However, officials did not initially know the exact extent of their injuries.

At least five people were killed in Arkansas, including a 26-year-old woman who was found dead outside a destroyed home in Olvey, a small community in Boone County, said Daniel Bolen of the county’s emergency management office. Another person died in Benton County, and two more bodies were found in Marion County. In Oklahoma, two people died in Mayes County, east of Tulsa, authorities said.

In Louisville, Kentucky, a man was killed on Sunday when a tree fell on him, police said. Louisville Mayor Craig Greenburg confirmed on social media that the death was storm-related.

A deadly series of storms
The destruction continued a grim month of deadly storms in the center of the country.

Tornadoes in Iowa this week killed at least five people and injured dozens. The deadly twisters came during a historically bad tornado season, at a time when climate change is increasing the severity of storms around the world. April saw the second-highest number of tornadoes in the U.S. on record.

Meteorologists and authorities had issued urgent warnings to seek shelter as the storms moved through the region overnight. “If you are in the path of this storm, seek shelter immediately!” the National Weather Service office in Norman, Oklahoma, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

DESTROYED HOUSES, BLOCKED ROADS
At daybreak the full extent of the devastation became clear.

On Sunday, residents woke up to see overturned cars and collapsed garages. Some residents walked back and forth, assessing the damage. Nearby, neighbors sat on the foundation of a destroyed house.

In Valley View, near the rest stop, the storms ripped roofs off homes and blew out windows. Clothing, insulation, plastic and other debris were wrapped around the miles of barbed wire fence that surrounds pastureland in the rural area.

LARGE POWER OUTAGES
The storm caused power outages in hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in the path of the storms.

More than 100,000 homes in Arkansas were without power on Sunday. In neighboring Missouri, more than 100,000 homes were also without power along the southern border. According to the tracking website poweroutage.us, 57,000 outages were reported in Texas and 7,400 in Oklahoma.

Impassable roads and downed power lines in Oklahoma also led officials in the city of Claremore, near Tulsa, to announce on social media that the city was on “lockdown” due to the damage.

Further storms predicted
The system that caused the recent storm was expected to move eastward over the Memorial Day weekend.

The start of the Indianapolis 500 was delayed as a strong storm moved into the area, forcing Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials to evacuate about 125,000 race fans. Video boards inside the track displayed a severe thunderstorm warning as rain, damaging winds and lightning approached from the west.

More severe storms were forecast in Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky.

Meteorologists expect the threat of severe weather to move to North Carolina and Virginia on Monday.

Associated Press reporters Sophia Tareen in Chicago, Kathy McCormack in Concord, NH, Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas, Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.