Five million people from eastern Texas to northwestern Louisiana and southwestern Arkansas remained under tornado waiting until early Tuesday morning, Shackelford said, and more than 800,000 people in the Austin area received flash flood warnings.
In Jacksboro, about 100 miles northwest of Fort Worth, Fire Chief Jeremy Jennings said it was a miracle more people weren’t injured, especially at Jacksboro Elementary School, which sheltered a large number of students when a storm swept through the building. and left the gym. seriously damaged.
The children were about to be released the day authorities decided to let everyone back in, Jacksboro Police Chief Scott Haynes said.
The gym at Jacksboro High School was also badly damaged and the facilities will be unusable “for a while,” Jennings said.
Burnett said elementary school students got “quite emotional” as they left the school seeing the damage caused by the storm.
Officials in Jack County, where Jacksboro is located, said 60 to 80 homes have been “demolished” and a shelter has been set up for displaced families.
“I’ve been part of the emergency services here for 24 years, I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude here,” said Jennings, the fire chief. “Nothing like this, not even anywhere else in this province.”
Further south in the Austin area, several government agencies, including the Texas Division of Emergency Management and the Texas Department of Public Safety, are responding to storm damage in Williamson and Bastrop counties, Governor Gregg Abbott said.
An emergency declaration was already in effect in Williamson County because of the recent fires and will also apply to storm damage, Abbott said.
“As we speak, I want everyone in the state who is going through this to know that the state of Texas will be with you every step of the way,” the governor said.
A reported tornado passed through Round Rock in Williamson County around 6 p.m., authorities said.
Many homes, businesses and city buildings suffered significant damage, Police Chief Allen Banks said, but only minor injuries were reported.
Emergency services were still evaluating the damage to determine the specific number of buildings affected, Banks said.
Round Rock is located about 15 miles north of Austin.
A flash flood warning was issued early Tuesday for parts of Central Texas, including south Austin. Up to three centimeters of rain had already fallen in the area and another three centimeters is possible, forecasters said.
“Flash flooding is underway or expected to begin soon,” said the National Weather Service in Austin, noting that the warning is in effect until 3:45 a.m.
Life-threatening flash flooding from creeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses are possible, the warning said.
Abbott encouraged residents in storm-damaged areas to wait until morning to fully assess their properties, as it can be dangerous at night.
Millions remain threatened by severe weather
As the storm system moves east on Tuesday, about 20 million people in the Lower Mississippi Valley and central Gulf Coast region will be threatened by severe weather, Shackelford said, including large tornadoes, damaging winds and hail.
Major cities in the storm’s path include Baton Rouge and New Orleans in Louisiana, and Jackson and Gulfport in Mississippi, along with Houston, Memphis and Birmingham, Alabama.
About 17 million people from Texas to Alabama and as far north as Arkansas and Tennessee are under flood control Tuesday, Shackelford added.
The system will weaken as it moves further east on Wednesday, posing a small risk of severe weather for areas such as Atlanta and Charlotte, Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina.
DailyExpertNews’s Taylor Romine, Joe Sutton and Claudia Dominguez contributed to this report.