At least two adults and one child were killed after a tornado struck the Texas Panhandle city of 8,000 people on Thursday evening — and delivered a devastating blow to a mobile home park.
Published Jun 15, 2023 4:43 PM AKDT | Updated Jun 18, 2023 7:50 AM AKDT
At least three fatalities and over a dozen injuries were reported in Perryton, Texas, after a destructive tornado tore through the city, located in the state’s panhandle near the Oklahoma border.
In a preliminary damage survey, the National Weather Service confirmed an EF3 tornado touched down in Perryton just after 5 p.m. CDT on Thursday evening. The twister was on the ground for 11 minutes and carved a 6.39-mile-long path with estimated maximum wind speeds of 140 mph.
As search and rescue efforts commenced following the destructive storm, at least three fatalities and over 50 injuries were confirmed by the Booker Fire Department. CNN correspondent Isabel Rosales identified the three fatalities as Becky Randall and Cindy Bransgrove, two women in their 60s who were found in a print shop and a food bank, respectively. The third victim was 11-year-old Matthew Ramirez, who was found in a trailer park.
Ochiltree General Hospital Community Education Consultant Amie Marrufo told AccuWeather that 115 patients came into the hospital Thursday following the twister. Injuries ranged from minor lacerations to head injuries, broken bones and collapsed lungs. According to Marrufo, there were no fatalities at the hospital.
Mariana Valenzuela sifts through the tornado damaged home of her aunt and cousins in Perryton, Texas, Friday, June, 16, 2023. Cleanup efforts continued Friday after severe storms — including some that produced tornadoes — tore across a swath of Southern states, killing at least five people as they destroyed hundreds of homes, tossed vehicles into buildings and left hundreds of thousands without electricity. (AP Photo/David Erickson)
While some individuals were released from the hospital on Friday morning, at least 40 were sent to neighboring hospitals in the Amarillo and Spearhead communities for further care. Marrufo said some were transported by ambulance while Med Flight transported others.
“There were more ambulances than you can imagine,” said Marrufo, who was thankful for the “incredible support” throughout the community.
Despite the hospital still being without power as of Friday morning, Marrufo said that the generators are supplying the building with enough power to remain fully operational. Marrufo added that anyone experiencing health concerns following Thursday’s tornado should come to the hospital.
“It is all hands on deck,” said Marrufo. “Patient care is what we are here for.”
Live footage from the storm-chasing group TwisterChasers showed extensive damage to mobile homes, some of which had been entirely destroyed. Power lines and trees could also be seen strewn across roads and lawns alike.
"I've got people yelling for help," TwisterChasers member Jeff Piotrowski said while filming as he walked the streets of the destroyed portion of the city. Based on the damage, Piotrowski described the tornado as "extremely violent."
At least 30 mobile homes were damaged or destroyed after a mobile home park took a "direct hit" from the tornado, according to Perryton Fire Chief Paul Dutcher. Firefighters worked into the late evening hours rescuing people from the rubble.
According to Dutcher, as many as 200 homes may have been damaged.
Despite taking a direct hit from the twister, the Perryton Fire Department's trucks and ambulances were still driveable, according to an update on its Facebook page.
"Keep praying for Perryton. We were hit hard," the agency wrote in a Facebook update. "Lives have been lost and many homes and businesses lost...We have a lot of work in the days ahead to heal our community."
View of the Perryton, Texas tornado that touched down Thursday, June 15, 2023. (Twitter/@carlosborunda5)
Perryton was without power following the storms, Xcel Energy told ABC News. Throughout the county of Ochiltree, where Perryton is located, over 91% of customers were without power at one point and nearly half of all the Excel Energy customers tracked were experiencing outages, according to PowerOutage.US.
Although there was no power, the Perryton Independent School District opened its gym as a shelter on Thursday evening. Community members brought generators to the school to assist with the outage. The school also announced that summer school is canceled on Friday.
If confirmed as an EF3, Thursday’s tornado could become the strongest twister on record to ever hit Perryton. Prior to Thursday, the most destructive tornado to track through the town was an F2 twister on May 4, 1950. That tornado carved a 1.9-mile-long path and killed one person and injured 13, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
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