At least 11 people were injured after heavy rain and tornadoes tore through Oklahoma Saturday night and Sunday morning.
No one was killed by the storms, although 100 homes were damaged in the state, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said at a news conference Sunday. Stitt said he has declared a state of emergency for six counties.
Stitt added that there are residential areas with “significant” damage.
It is unclear how many tornadoes hit the state, but there was damage to several buildings, downed power lines, traffic lights and trees, according to the Oklahoma City Fire Department. Video footage shows Newcastle Elementary School in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area suffering extensive damage, including tiles falling from the building’s facade.
Elsewhere in Oklahoma City, piles of debris, including wood and drywall, were visible. The full extent of the damage has yet to be determined, but EF3 damage (136-165 mph winds) was reported in Harrah in central Oklahoma, and EF1 damage (86-110 mph winds) was reported in Newcastle, according to the National Weather Service field office in Norman. The EF scale is a rating system used to classify tornadoes based on wind speed.
Chad Allcox, the mayor of Choctaw, Oklahoma, told the News that 15 homes in the Railhead neighborhood were “completely flattened” by the storms. Another 49 homes were damaged.
No power lines were downed and no serious injuries were reported in Choctaw, which is on the southeast corner of Oklahoma City and was directly hit by a tornado that hung about 20 miles long, Allcox said.
“We certainly didn’t expect this tornado, but the outpouring of support has been tremendous,” he said. “In bad times, there’s always good, and once again the community has come together to help each other pick up the pieces.”
Allcox added that the storms are “devastating for the holidays.”
Eleven people in Oklahoma County were taken to hospitals by ambulance, the field office said.
In Oklahoma City, five people were taken to local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, while several others sought help on their own, fire department spokesman Scott Douglas said. It’s not clear whether they were injured by the tornadoes or the heavy rain, but firefighters said they responded to several vehicles that were submerged in water.
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Oklahoma and the rest of the central and southern Plains have not yet recovered.
The severe weather is expected to continue into Monday, “with the heaviest rainfall in central to eastern Oklahoma through parts of northwestern Arkansas and southern Missouri,” according to a National Weather Service warning.
“Multiple rounds of severe thunderstorms are possible today into this evening across parts of the southern Plains,” the weather service’s storm prediction center said in an update. “Tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail are possible.”
The weather service’s office in Norman posted on the social media platform X that a tornado warning issued Sunday night in southeastern Oklahoma was canceled because the chance of severe storms developing again in the area in the coming hours had decreased.
However, thunderstorms dumped rainfall at a rate of about 1 inch per hour in parts of southeastern Oklahoma, prompting federal meteorologists to issue flash flood warnings — flooding in the state is imminent and higher ground should be sought — for Haskell, Latimer, central Le Flore and northeastern Pittsburg Counties through 2 a.m. Monday.
The severe weather threat will shift to Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, the mid-Mississippi Valley and the Midwest by Monday evening.
Most of Oklahoma remains under a flood warning with a threat of heavy rain, and more than 12,000 utility customers lost power shortly before 1 a.m. ET, according to Poweroutage.us.
During Sunday’s news conference, Stitt acknowledged that Election Day on Tuesday is a big one, given the number of power outages in the state. He said officials are prioritizing making sure all polling places are up and running by then.