Many people were injured after several tornadoes on Monday ripped through parts of the south-central U.S. states of Texas and Oklahoma.
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The first tornado touched down around 4 p.m. local time on Monday in Jacksboro, a city of some 5,000 people in northern Texas, causing damage to an elementary school, a high school, an animal shelter and mobile homes. No students at either school were hurt.
Officials in Jacksboro said Monday night that the storm left behind a two-mile (3.2 km) wide debris field, damaging at least 60 to 80 homes. Four residents were rescued from a damaged home, none of them seriously hurt.
The city of Elgin, east of the state's capital Austin, saw significant damage and some injuries. Elgin police reported Monday night that at least four injuries, including a rescue underway of two people in a collapsed structure. The worst damage was east of the town, with as many as four entrapments reported, said Elgin city manager Bert Cunningham.
Another tornado was reported in the city of Round Rock, an Austin suburb, with debris in roadways and structural damage to multiple homes and businesses being sighted along the path of tornados. No injuries have been reported so far.
According to the National Weather Service, the city of Madisonville, about 100 miles north of Houston, was also struck by a tornado on Monday night. Over 72,000 customers are without power in Texas and Oklahoma as of Monday midnight. Texas Governor Greg Abbott told a news conference Monday night that the "devastating" storms caused significant damage and was thankful there were no reports of fatalities.
"We know there are many people whose lives have been completely disrupted and people who've lost their homes," Abbott said.
A tornado watch was issued for portions of central and eastern Texas and southeast Oklahoma into Monday night, meaning weather conditions are ripe for more tornadoes to form. Severe weather is expected to continue through the middle of the week and include tornadoes, damaging winds, large hail and torrential rains.
An area from central and eastern Texas to western Louisiana and southwest Arkansas had the highest potential for severe weather through Monday night. A multiday severe thunderstorm threat is a classic setup for spring, with a potent jet stream disturbance spreading into increasingly humid air over the southern United States, which will give rise to widespread rain and thunderstorms across the area.