Tornado slams Dallas; 4 killed in Arkansas, Oklahoma

By AP | Last updated: Oct 24, 2019 - 12:54:12 PM

Women stand outside a house damaged by a tornado in the Preston Hollow section of Dallas, Oct. 21.

DALLAS—A tornado tossed trees into homes, tore off storefronts and downed power lines but killed no one in a densely populated area of Dallas, leaving Mayor Eric Johnson to declare the city “very fortunate” to be assessing only property damage.

A meteorologist said Oct. 21 that people took shelter thanks to early alerts, and that it was fortunate the tornado struck the evening of Oct. 20, when many people were home.

“Anytime you have a tornado in a major metropolitan area, the potential for large loss of life is always there,” said Patrick Marsh, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. “We were very fortunate that the tornado did not hit the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium or the State Fair, where you would have had a lot of people that were exposed.”

The tornado crossed over two major interstates. “If that happened at rush hour, I think we’d be talking about a different story,” he said.

The National Weather Service said the tornado that ripped through North Dallas was an EF-3, which has a maximum wind speed of 140 mph. The agency said another tornado in the suburb of Rowlett was EF-1, with maximum wind speeds of 100 mph.

The late-night storms spawned tornadoes in several states, killing at least four people in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

In one Dallas neighborhood, Dustin and Lauren Collins said they felt lucky as they cleared debris from the yard of their largely intact home.

“When other people’s homes are in your front yard, you just realize—just the magnitude of the storm,” said Lauren Collins, 36.

At a nearby shopping center, the fronts and roofs of stores were ripped away. Ruptured pipes were still spewing water Monday morning, Oct. 21, drenching the piles of mangled drywall, insulation and steel framed inside the brick building.

Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans said no firefighters were hurt when the storm made the roof of Station 41 collapse.

Tornadoes are not common in October, and cities are rarely hit because they don’t have a big footprint in the tornado belt, according to tornado scientist Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory.

A study by Brooks last year found that only one-third of the most violent tornadoes hit communities of more than 5,000 people.

The storm system disrupted flights in the Dallas area, northwest Arkansas and at Memphis International Airport in Tennessee, where windows were broken.

One person died when a tree fell on a home in Rogers, Arkansas, about 150 miles northwest of Little Rock, according to the Benton County Department of Public Safety. In northeastern Arkansas, an EF-1 tornado injured at least five people in Tyronza.

Authorities said severe thunderstorms were responsible for the deaths of at least three people in eastern Oklahoma. Another person died when a tree blew onto a mobile home near Valliant, about 170 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, emergency management officials said. (AP)

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