Deadly storm’s tornadoes and flooding hit Texas, Oklahoma

IDABEL, Okla. — Residents in southeastern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas began assessing weather damage Saturday, working to recover and thankful to have survived after a storm stretching from Dallas to northwest Arkansas spawned tornadoes and produced flash flooding, killing at least one, injuring others and leaving homes and other buildings in ruins.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt went to the town of Idabel to see the damage. He said on social media that all the homes had been searched and a 90-year-old man was killed. Keli Cain, spokesperson for the state’s Department of Emergency Management, said the man’s body was found at his home in the Pickens area of McCurtain County, about 36 miles north of Idabel.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol also reported a 6-year-old girl drowned and a 43-year-old man was missing after water swept their vehicle off a bridge near Stilwell, about 135 miles north of Idabel. The drowning has not been officially attributed to the storm and will be investigated by the medical examiner, Cain said.

On Saturday afternoon, Stitt declared a state of emergency for McCurtain County, where Idabel is located, and neighboring Bryan, Choctaw and LeFlore counties.

The declaration is a step in qualifying for federal assistance and funding and clears the way for state agencies to make disaster-recovery related purchases without limits on bidding requirements.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said damage assessments and recovery efforts are underway in northeast Texas and encouraged residents to report damage to the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

“I have deployed all available resources to help respond and recover,” Abbott said in a statement. “I thank all of our hardworking state and local emergency management personnel for their swift response.”

National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Darby in Tulsa said the far-reaching storm produced heavy rain in the Stilwell area at the time, around 4 inches.

Idabel, a rural town of about 7,000 at the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains, saw extensive damage, Cain said. “There are well over 100 homes and businesses damaged from minor damage to totally destroyed,” Cain said.

Shelbie Villalpando, 27, of Powderly, Texas, said she was eating dinner with her family Friday when tornado sirens prompted them to congregate first in their rented home’s hallways, then with her children, aged 5, 10 and 14, in the bathtub.

“Within two minutes of getting them in the bathtub, we had to lay over the kids because everything started going crazy,” Villalpando said.

Judge Brandon Bell, the highest elected official in Lamar County where Powderly is located, declared a disaster in that area. Bell’s declaration said at least two dozen people were injured across the county.

Powderly is about 45 miles west of Idabel and about 120 miles northeast of Dallas. Both are near the Texas-Oklahoma border.

LM OTERO/AP A man searches on Saturday in Powderly, Texas, for the eyeglasses he had dropped the night before in front of his daughter’s home, which was destroyed by a tornado.