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Severe thunderstorms and high winds Saturday night left at least four people dead in Oklahoma, including an infant, injured residents and destroyed homes, authorities said.
Severe thunderstorms and high winds Saturday night left at least four people dead in Oklahoma, including an infant, injured residents and destroyed homes, authorities said, as more than two dozen tornadoes were reported overnight.
A series of tornadoes ripped through parts of the state, striking particularly hard the cities of Sulphur, Holdenville and Ardmore, according to the National Weather Service.
Keli Cain, the public affairs director for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said Sunday that the state’s medical examiner confirmed three storm-related fatalities, two in Holdenville, and one on Interstate 34, near Marietta.
At a news conference Sunday, Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma announced that a fourth person had died, in Sulphur. At least 100 other people were injured across the state, the department said Sunday.
Shelters and emergency kitchens had opened to house and feed displaced residents, while local officials coordinated search-and-rescue efforts, the department said.
A man and an infant girl were those killed in Holdenville, the Hughes County Emergency Medical Service said Sunday.
At least 16 homes in Oklahoma were destroyed, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said in a briefing Sunday morning.
On Sunday, Stitt issued a state of emergency for 12 counties and toured Sulphur.
He described the scene there as “just devastating,” adding that it seemed like every business in downtown had been destroyed.
He said that early reports suggest that a powerful tornado “was kind of blowing right through downtown here and I just haven’t see this much destruction from my time as governor.”
Video and photos from television station KOCO News showed businesses in downtown Sulphur damaged or leveled, and cars impaled by flying debris.
Julie Jack, 64, who owns a women’s boutique in Sulphur, said Sunday that her business “is completely destroyed and all the contents in it are lost.”
She said that except for a new hotel in the downtown area where her store was, “I would have to say every downtown structure is a loss.”
“It looks like a bomb was set off,” she added.
The severe weather came a day after tornadoes tore through parts of Nebraska and Iowa and leveled dozens of homes. In Iowa, 270 homes and multiple structures were damaged or destroyed in Pottawattamie County, and about 25 homes were damaged or destroyed in Shelby County, according to FEMA.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
