Email article
Print article
Digg
Del.icio.us
Newsvine
Storms packing strong winds blew through the state, with at least one weak tornado touching down in the San Angelo area. San Angelo police said no injuries were reported, but a neighborhood surrounding Fort Concho sustained damage. The national historic landmark is housing children and others removed from a polygamist religious sect last week in nearby Eldorado.
At least 100 homes and buildings were damaged across the state, officials said.
Three people suffered minor injuries in the rural town of Breckenridge east of Abilene, officials said, while a gas field worker south of Fort Worth lost an arm up to the elbow.
The unidentified gas worker was inside a trailer at a drilling site near Alvarado when a possible tornado struck, said Elaine Thomas, a spokeswoman for EOG Resources. He remained hospitalized in Dallas on Thursday with injuries that were not life-threatening.
No deaths were reported, American Red Cross spokeswoman Anita Foster said.
“If there’s any good news in a storm as severe as last night’s, that is the good news,” Foster said.
Up to 50 homes were damaged in Allen, a suburb north of Dallas. As many as 20 homes were damaged in DeSoto, just south of Dallas, and another 20 in Breckenridge, officials said.
Straight-line winds carved out a destructive path running southwest to northeast across the city of Hurst, just east of Fort Worth. Downed trees littered residential neighborhoods, blocking streets, snapping utility poles and snagging power lines. Some large tree trucks had snapped just a foot or two above ground level.
Evelyn Wooten, 69, said she spent early Thursday morning sitting alone in a front-hall closet wearing a motorcycle helmet and waiting out the storm in the sturdiest room in her house.