DALLAS — Tornadoes and violent storms raked northern Texas on Tuesday afternoon, crumbling a nursing-home wing, peeling roofs from dozens of homes and lifting big-rig trailers into the air and hurling them. More than a dozen injuries were reported.
Overturned cars left streets unnavigable, and flattened trucks clogged highway shoulders. Preliminary estimates were that six to 12 tornadoes had touched down in north Texas, senior National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Martello said. But firm numbers would come only after survey teams checked damage today, he said.
In suburban Dallas, Lancaster police Officer Paul Beck said 10 people were injured, two of them severely. Three people were hurt in Arlington, including two residents of a nursing home who were taken to a hospital with minor injuries after a twister clipped the building, city Assistant Fire Chief Jim Self said.
“Of course, the windows were flying out. And my sister is paralyzed, so I had to get someone to help me get her in a wheelchair to get her out of the room,” said Joy Johnston, who was visiting her 79-year-old sister at the Green Oaks Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. “It was terribly loud.”
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport canceled hundreds of flights and diverted others heading its way. Among the most stunning video was of an industrial section of Dallas, where rows of empty tractor-trailers crumpled like soda cans littering a parking lot.
“The officers were watching the tornadoes form and drop,” Kennedale, Texas, Police Chief Tommy Williams said. “It was pretty active for a while.”
Confirmed tornadoes touched down near Royce City and Silver Springs, said National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Bishop. A tornado watch remained in effect until 8 p.m.
April is the peak of tornado season, which runs from March until June. Bishop said Tuesday’s storms suggest that “we’re on pace to be above normal.”
Most of Dallas was spared the full wrath of the storm. Yet in Lancaster, television helicopters panned over exposed homes without roofs and flattened buildings. Broken sheets of plywood blanketed lawns and covered rooftops.
American Airlines canceled more than 450 arriving and departing flights at its hub airport by late Tuesday afternoon, and 37 other incoming flights had been diverted to different airports.
Airport spokesman David Magana said more than 110 planes were damaged by hail. It wasn’t clear how many belonged to American Airlines, but American and American Eagle pulled 101 planes out of service for hail-damage inspections.
Flights also were canceled at Dallas Love Field, which is a big base for Southwest Airlines. That airline had canceled more than 45 flights in and out of the airport by Tuesday evening.
Meteorologists said the twisters were the result of a slow-moving storm system centered over northern New Mexico.
