Power company linemen repair damage after a string of tornadoes ripped through North Texas.
Photo:
Mike Stone/European Pressphoto Agency
But as Texas residents assessed the damage Monday, the storm has moved northeast toward the Midwest, exacerbating flooding that already had claimed 13 lives, according to the Associated Press.
The tornadoes on Saturday night killed 11 people, injured dozens and caused severe damage spread out over a wide area outside of Dallas, officials said. The National Weather Service said one of the tornadoes was classified as EF-4, which is the second-most powerful with winds up to more than 200 mph. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday made disaster declarations for four counties.
In the Southeast, the death toll blamed on the freakish winter weather climbed to 19 on Sunday, the AP said.
Meanwhile, another storm, in western Texas, brought blowing and drifting snow along with plunging temperatures. The state Department of Public Safety in Amarillo strongly discouraged travel throughout the entire Texas Panhandle—a 26-county area covering nearly 26,000 square miles, according to the AP.
Tornadoes that struck Texas
Saturday were the latest in a string of deadly weather events that have
killed over two dozen people this weekend in the U.S. In South America
and the U.K., torrential rains have caused widespread flooding. Photo:
Guy Reynolds/Associated Press
The storms triggered widespread airline cancellations. Nearly 900 flights have been canceled across the U.S. and another 500 have been delayed, according to the Associated Press.
Flight-tracking service FlightAware showed that more than a third of the cancellations were at Chicago’s two main airports. Another large chunk came from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
Other cities with an unusually large number of cancellations included Houston, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Missouri, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Lubbock, Texas.
The storm system—still powerful—was moving east and northeast and was expected to diminish in severity by Monday after causing icing and more flooding in many states.
In Illinois, three adults and two children died in flooding Saturday night after trying to cross a flooded road in a car, according to Marion County Coroner Troy Cannon. Heavy rains had left a nearby creek swollen with water and moving swiftly. According to the coroner’s office, the car drove into several feet of water and was swept downstream some 150 to 200 feet, where it became stuck and eventually completely submerged.
In Greene County, Mo., authorities said two fatalities there were associated with the flooding.
That storm front first hit Garland, Texas, a city of about 235,000 some 20 miles from Dallas, where tornadoes Saturday killed eight people and left a large swath of damage, authorities there said.
“We literally have structures that don’t exist any more,” said Officer Joe Harn, a spokesman for the Garland Police Department. “We’ve had bad storms in North Texas before, but this is one of the worst ones. I’ve never seen this sort of devastation.”
In a rural portion of Collin County, also in North Texas, three people were confirmed dead because of the same storm system, said Lt. Chris Havey, of the Collin County Sheriff’s Office.
Lt. Havey said that all three were believed to have been inside structures when they were killed, and added that one of the deceased was an infant. Authorities were still searching damaged structures for any more victims, he said. But Lt. Havey said there had not been any reports of missing people. Severe damage from the storm was spread out over a 15-mile area, he added.
On Sunday in North Texas, state troopers were blocking off roads, utility crews were restoring power, and people were walking around hushed and dazed.
In New Mexico, Gov. Susana Martinez declared a state of emergency because of the snowstorm and called out the National Guard to assist stranded motorists.
“We have a lot of resources on the ground to clear our roads, as well as conduct search-and-rescue operations. I ask New Mexicans to please stay off the roads until the conditions improve,” the governor added.
The death toll in the Southeast tied to severe weather reached 19 on Sunday when Alabama authorities found the body of a man whose vehicle was swept away while trying to cross a bridge.
Heavy downpours have thrashed the southeastern U.S. since Wednesday, bringing record rain in some areas.
—Doug Cameron of The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press contributed to this article.
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