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"It's bad, it's very bad. It's non-stop crazy. It couldn't have
hit in a more vulnerable place," Mayor Kerry Symons said by
telephone, adding that he would be unable to say how many people
had died until Friday morning.
ABC's Amarillo affiliate KVII-TV, citing Perryton fire chief
Paul Dutcher, reported that at least three people were killed.
The Ochiltree General Hospital in Perryton, a town of 8,000
people, had yet to receive any dead, but some people with
life-threatening injuries were transferred to larger medical
centers in Amarillo, Debbie Beck, the hospital's chief financial
officer, said by telephone.
Beck said that up to 100 people with injuries ranging from
scratches to a collapsed lung were treated at the hospital in
Perryton. She did not know how many had been transferred to
Amarillo.
At least 30 trailer homes were damaged or destroyed in Perryton,
KVII-TV reported, and firefighters were still rescuing victims
at 6 p.m. It said the town may have been struck by three
tornadoes.
Images from the ground in Perryton, about 110 miles (180 km)
northeast of Amarillo close to the Oklahoma state line, showed
homes torn apart and left in rubble."Jane & I are praying for
the people of Perryton tonight. I am in contact with Mayor
Symons and this tragedy is being closely monitored by myself and
my whole staff," U.S. Representative Ronny Jackson, a Republican
from Texas, said on Twitter.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in a written statement that he
was deploying the state's emergency response teams to the area,
including resources from an emergency medical task force, along
with search and rescue teams.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks; Writing and additional reporting by
Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Costas Pitas, Stephen Coates, Simon
Cameron-Moore and William Mallard)
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