At least five people are dead and 20 are injured after severe storms in Cooke and Denton counties late Saturday, according to multiple reports.
The storms moved through northern counties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area just before midnight Saturday. According to KRLD's media partner NBC 5, Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington said much of the damage was centered just south of Valley View.
“We do have five confirmed (dead), but sadly, we think that that number is probably going to go up,” Sappington said. ”There’s nothing left of this house. It’s just a trail of debris left. The devastation is pretty severe.”
There were not any deaths immediately reported in Denton County, but the Denton County Fire Department said there were multiple people trapped at the marina at Lake Ray Roberts just after midnight.
Late Saturday, a tornado crossed into northern Denton County in Texas and overturned tractor-trailer trucks, stopping traffic on Interstate 35, Denton County Community Relations Director Dawn Cobb said in a statement.
The tornado was confirmed near Valley View, moving east at 40 mph, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a tornado warning for northern Denton County, Cobb said.
The storm damaged homes, overturned motorhomes and knocked down power lines and trees throughout the area including points in Sanger, Pilot Point, Ray Roberts Lake, and Isle du Bois State Park, Cobb said.
People who suffered injuries in the storm were transported to area hospitals by ground and air ambulances, but the number of injuries in the county was not immediately known, Cobb said, while a shelter was opened in Sanger.
The fire department in the city of Denton posted on X that emergency personnel were responding to a marina “for multiple victims, some reported trapped.”
Earlier Saturday night, the National Weather Service's office in Norman, Oklahoma, said via the social platform X that the warning was for northern Noble and far southern Kay counties, an area located to the north of Oklahoma City. “If you are in the path of this storm take cover now!” it said.
A following post at 10:05 p.m. said storms had exited the area but warned of a storm moving across North Texas that could affect portions of south central Oklahoma.
At 10:24 p.m., the weather service office in Fort Worth posted a message warning residents in Era and Valley View they were in the direct path of a possible tornado and to immediately seek shelter. The Forth Worth office continued to post notices and shelter warnings tracking the movement of the storm through midnight and separately issued a severe thunderstorm warning with “golf ball sized hail” possible.
Tornadoes in Iowa this week left at least five people dead and dozens injured. The deadly twisters have spawned during a historically bad season in the country for tornadoes, at a time when climate change is heightening the severity of storms around the world. April had the second-highest number of tornadoes on record in the country.
As of early Sunday morning, more than 35,000 people were without power in Dallas County, nearly 20,000 in Tarrant County, and more than 10,000 in Collin County, according to ONCOR.
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