Hundreds of thousands of residents in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi remained without power Friday following severe weather Thursday afternoon and deadly tornadoes in north Texas.
A tornado tore through the Texas Panhandle town of Perryton, killing three people, injuring dozens more and causing widespread damage as another series of fierce storms carved its way through Southern states. A person in Florida was killed Thursday and a man in Mississippi died early Friday, local outlets reported.
First responders from surrounding towns and cities and neighboring Oklahoma descended on Perryton, which is home to more than 8,000 people and located about 115 miles northeast of Amarillo, just south of the Oklahoma line.
Mobile home communities faced extensive damage, as did much of Perryton’s downtown area.
Elsewhere in Texas and the southern United States, residents are being told to prepare for extreme heat through the weekend. The National Weather Service predicted temperatures will rise as high as the 110s.
Scorching temperatures in southern Texas and parts of coastal Louisiana “will represent a 15-25 degree anomaly for this time of year,” the weather service said Friday.
In Escambia County, Florida, one person was killed Thursday when a tornado caused a tree to fall on a home, county spokesperson Andie Gibson told the Pensacola News Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network.
A man in Canton, Mississippi, died after a tree fell on him during stormy weather early Friday. Canton Police Chief Otha Brown told WLBT-TV the man was killed after high winds toppled a tree onto his carport as he was entering his car.
In Perryton, Texas, mobile homes were ripped apart and pickup trucks with shattered windshields were slammed against mounds of rubble in residential areas.
Perryton’s downtown was also walloped. About two blocks of businesses were heavily damaged, including an office supply store, a floral shop and a hair salon along the town’s Main Street. A minivan was shoved into the outer wall of a theater.

Usatoday