Tornadoes Kill 32, Obliterate Homes in Texas

HOUSTON — At least 32 people were killed Tuesday when a fierce line of twisters ripped across the central Texas hills, flipping cars, stripping roofs and bursting windows in the deadliest tornadoes to strike the state in a decade.

The damage stretched from Austin to Waco, but nearly all the fatalities were concentrated in the tiny Williamson County town of Jarrell, a community of just 1,000 that was devastated by a 1989 tornado. That storm killed one person, injured 28 and wiped out 47 homes, and residents said nothing could have prepared them for this havoc.

“It’s going to be awful,” said Janine Brock, a lifelong resident of Jarrell, about 40 miles north of Austin. “They’re going to have to bury so many people.”

Roaring corkscrew winds virtually obliterated two square miles of the city, including an entire subdivision, the Double Creeks Estate, which lost between 50 and 70 homes. “It’s not there anymore,” Sheriff’s Deputy R.B. Raby told the Associated Press. “I don’t know of anything anyone can do. It’s just a flat, vacant field.”

Reports of fatalities continued to grow into the evening. At least 30 people were confirmed dead at a temporary morgue set up at the volunteer Fire Department. More were believed missing. As darkness fell, rescue workers sifted the rubble for survivors. Hearses pulled into town.

Dazed residents, newly homeless, wandered through the mud. Many cried.

“It’s hard to know what to say, because right now no one knows who’s missing and who’s dead,” said Max Johnson, pastor of the Jarrell Baptist Church. “In a town this small, there’s probably not one person who did not know someone killed in this tragedy.”

Shreds of clothing dangled from barbed-wire fences. Telephone poles were snapped in two. Dozens of vehicles were torn to shreds, their mangled parts hurled into ditches or embedded in the wreckage of nearby homes. For a while, Interstate 35, the state’s principal north-south freeway, was closed.

“We’ve got nothing left except piles of debris,” said Richard Elliot, the county’s chief deputy sheriff.

Several of the twisters were captured on amateur video, which showed tightly wound funnels slashing across the blackened sky shortly before 4 p.m. CDT. Baseball-size hail and flash flooding added to the chaos. Electricity was knocked out to about 50,000 homes across the four counties hardest hit, officials said. Authorities urged people still at work not to drive home.

“I seen the tornado on TV and I called my wife and daughters and told them to get in their cars and run,” said Al Clawson, the owner of a garbage recycling plant that was wrecked. At least two of the plant’s trucks lay on their sides after being tossed into the air.

Two other deaths, both in Austin, were blamed on the storms. One person was killed when a tornado destroyed two homes around Lake Travis. Another was swept into a creek and drowned, city spokesman Carlos Cordova said.

Just north of Austin, in Cedar Park, another tornado ripped the roof off an Albertson’s grocery store. The building collapsed, injuring at least eight people. One was believed missing in the rubble.

Outside a nearby fast-food restaurant, people watched the tornado in the parking lot--”until the funnel started coming through the sky,” said Wendy’s manager Ray Westphal. “Then, everyone panicked.”

He said that the swirling cloud “looked about two inches tall at first.” Then, he added, “it started taking up the entire horizon. As it got closer, building tops were flying around. It was picking cars right up into the air, flinging them everywhere.”

In Bell County, about 20 miles north of Jarrell, another tornado touched down on the edge of Lake Belton, destroying a city-owned marina and half a dozen boats at Morgan’s Point Resort.

A tornado watch was posted until early today across central and east Texas and into Louisiana and Arkansas.

Tuesday’s tornadoes were the state’s deadliest since 30 people died and 162 were injured in the far West Texas town of Saragosa on May 22, 1987. The two deadliest tornadoes in Texas history occurred in Waco on May 11, 1953, and in Goliad on May 18, 1902. Both storms killed 114 people.

Times wire services contributed to this report.