At Least One Dead After Tornadoes Lash Oklahoma

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/05/us/tornadoes-texas-oklahoma-arkansas.html

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At least one person was killed and at least 10 others were injured after tornadoes struck Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas on Friday night, officials said.

More than 150 homes and buildings were damaged in the storms, which tore through rural areas, hitting McCurtain County in the southeastern corner of Oklahoma especially hard.

“The office of the chief medical examiner has confirmed one fatality in or near Pickens in McCurtain County,” Keli Cain, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said in an email.

In McCurtain County, the storm leveled buildings, pulverized concrete and warped metal. Videos and photos posted online showed the storm snapping trees in half and downing power lines.

Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma wrote on Twitter that the state had sent search-and-rescue teams and generators to the county. He said storms had also hit Bryan, Choctaw and Le Flore Counties.

Carly Atchison, a spokeswoman for Mr. Stitt, said in an email that the governor was assessing the damage on Saturday in Idabel, the McCurtain County seat, which has a population of about 7,000 people.

“Over 100 homes and businesses have been damaged,” Ms. Atchison said. “The governor will issue an executive order today to declare a state of emergency in the affected counties to ensure those communities have the resources and support they need from the state.”

At least 10 people were injured and some homes and buildings were destroyed in an East Texas county near the border of Oklahoma that is about 100 miles northeast from Dallas.

Shortly after 4 p.m. on Friday, one tornado struck Lamar County, Texas, and damaged or destroyed 50 homes, the county sheriff and emergency management office said in a statement on Friday night.

Ten people were injured in the county and treated at a hospital, including two people who were in critical condition, but were stable, officials said.

As of about 2 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, more than 12,000 customers without power in Texas, according to PowerOutage.us, which aggregates data from utilities across the country.

The National Weather Service office in Shreveport, La., issued its highest level warning for a tornado on Friday night.

This rare warning, a tornado emergency, is only sent when a tornado is confirmed and presents a severe threat with the possibility of catastrophic damage.

The tornado emergency was issued in cities in Oklahoma, including Idabel, Broken Bow and Eagletown; in Texas, including New Boston and Hooks; and in Arkansas, including Arden and Ashdown.

John Hart, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center, said workers from at least four Weather Service offices had been dispatched to the remote, rural areas hit hardest by the storm to survey the damage and to determine how many tornadoes hit.

“There were numerous reports of significant damage across parts of East Texas, southeast Oklahoma and western Arkansas and quite a few of those may end up being tornadoes,” Mr. Hart said.

The peak tornado season, the time of year when tornadoes are most prevalent, normally runs from May into early June, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Mr. Hart said strong tornadoes were not common in November, but they do occur occasionally. Last November, there were 25 preliminary tornado reports from the Storm Prediction Center.

In December 2021, at least 90 people died after tornadoes tore across Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi and Tennessee. The National Weather Service reported that there were 61 tornadoes during that outbreak.

Scientists are not yet able to determine whether there is a link between climate change and the frequency or strength of tornadoes.

Tornadoes are relatively small, short-lived weather events, and because of that, there is limited historical data on their prevalence in the past; scientists need at least 40 years of weather data before they are able to draw a causal link.

Researchers say that in recent years tornadoes seemed to be occurring in greater “clusters,” and that the area of the country known as Tornado Alley, a region where most tornadoes occur, seemed to be shifting eastward.

The timing of tornado seasons is also becoming more unpredictable, researchers have found, with more early and late starts compared with decades ago. The reason for this is unclear.

Euan Ward contributed reporting.