Tornadoes are a frequent and often devastating weather phenomenon in the United States, with the Great Plains states of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas the hardest hit.
Residents in southeastern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas have begun assessing weather damage after a storm stretching from Dallas to northwest Arkansas spawned tornadoes and produced flash flooding, killing two people, injuring others and leaving homes and buildings in ruins.
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt went to the town of Idabel to see the damage on Saturday.
He said on social media that all the homes had been searched and a 90-year-old man was killed.
Morris County, Texas, Judge Doug Reeder said in a social media post that one person died as a result of a tornado in the far northeastern Texas County, offering no other details.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol also reported a 6-year-old girl drowned and a 43-year-old man was missing after their vehicle was swept by water off a bridge near Stilwell, about 217 kilometres north of Idabel.
Stitt declared a state of emergency for McCurtain County, where Idabel is located, and neighbouring Bryan, Choctaw and LeFlore counties.
Idabel, a rural town of about 7,000 at the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains, saw extensive damage, Cain said. "There are well over 100 homes and businesses damaged from minor damage to totally destroyed," Cain said.
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Scenes of devastation are visible in all directions along Lamar County Road 35940, west of State Highway 271.
'Everything started going crazy'
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said damage assessments and recovery efforts are under way in northeast Texas and encouraged residents to report damage to the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
"I have deployed all available resources to help respond and recover," Abbott said in a statement. "I thank all of our hardworking state and local emergency management personnel for their swift response."
National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Darby in Tulsa said the far-reaching storm produced heavy rain in the Stilwell area at the time, around10.16 centimetres.
Shelbie Villalpando, 27, of Powderly, Texas, said she was eating dinner with her family Friday when tornado sirens prompted them to congregate first in their rented home’s hallways, then with her children, aged 5, 10 and 14, in the bathtub.
"Within two minutes of getting them in the bathtub, we had to lay over the kids because everything started going crazy," Villalpando said.
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Logan Johnson, 11, carries a sign that reads "Thankful" after he recovered it from his family's destroyed home in Texas.
Frequent weather system
Terimaine Davis and his son were huddled in the bathtub until just before the tornado barreled through Friday, reducing their home in Powderly to a roofless, sagging heap.
"We left like five minutes before the tornado actually hit," Davis, 33, told The Associated Press news agency. "Me and my son were in the house in the tub and that was about the only thing left standing."
Powderly is about 72 kilometres west of Idabel and about 193 kilometres northeast of Dallas and both are near the Texas-Oklahoma border.
Judge Brandon Bell, the highest elected official in Lamar County where Powderly is located, declared a disaster in that area.
Tornadoes are a frequent and often devastating weather phenomenon in the United States, with the Great Plains states of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas the hardest hit.
In December last year, dozens of devastating tornadoes ripped through five US states overnight, leaving at least 79 people dead in Kentucky — with fatalities also recorded in Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois.
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