A local emergency official confirmed that one person was killed in a rural area of north Texas as tornadoes ravaged and destroyed at least two houses. The fatality occurred days after the twisters hit a number of Great Plains states.
Authorities began assessing the extent of the damage and went from one house to another. However, they were faced with heavy rainfall which slowed down their effort, according to Eastland County Judge and emergency services coordinator Rex Fields.
"There is a considerable amount of damage," said Fields. "Homes have been lost."
The twister touched down around 8 kilometers south of Cisco, a town filled with farms and small ranches. A second tornado touched down in Burkburnett, a town located around 24 kilometers north of Wichita Falls.
Several buildings were heavily damaged while flooding incidence in the area was also reported.
"We can't exactly tell what all we've got just yet," said Fields. "We don't even have everybody accounted for."
On Saturday afternoon, the weather service elevated the risk of tornadoes to the "moderate" category in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and the rest in North Texas. Hail storm was also seen in Eastland County which was hit with at least 3-inch of hail.
"As expected, the environment in North Texas is particularly favorable (for tornadoes)," said chief of operations Bill Bunting at the Norman, Oklahoma-based Storm Prediction Center.
Later in the evening, the National Weather Service (NWS) canceled tornado warnings in those counties found to be still in the storm path.
Meteorologist Jim Kalina of the NWS reported that three tornadoes touched down in the rural areas of eastern Colorado on Saturday. No twister-caused injuries or property damage were recorded.
"These touched down on the Eastern Plains where there is a lot of open space," said Kalina.
Other cases of "tornado touchdowns" occurred in western Kansas on Saturday which carried on until the border between Oklahoma and Texas. However, there were no injuries that were immediately reported, according to Liz Leitman of the Storm Prediction Center.
The NWS issued a number of tornado watches across certain areas of Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado and Arkansas, adding that millions of residents could be affected. The Southern Plains states are usually hit by tornadoes from May until early June.
