More than 100,000 people without power and tornado sirens sound as strong winds lash Texas and the South

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Thousands of people across Texas will wake up Friday morning without power after a night of tornado sirens and high winds, as a “powerful” winter storm is expected to bring heavy snow from the Midwest to New England this weekend. of week.

More than 170,000 homes and businesses were without power in Texas Thursday night after severe weather hit parts of the state and beyond, the Texas utility reported. oncor said.

As of early Friday morning, power had been restored to some, with at least 110,000 utility customers still facing outages.

Tornadoes reported in multiple counties

Tornado sirens sounded in Dallas and other parts of Texas on Thursday, and high winds overturned several tractor-trailers, authorities said. No deaths had been immediately reported.

Tornadoes were reported in Franklin and Hopkins counties in Texas, which are east of Dallas, and in the Shreveport, Louisiana area, the National Weather Service said.

Storm surveys are underway to confirm if the reported tornadoes actually occurred.

Tornado warnings covered about 3.5 million people in Texas and the South Thursday night, according to the weather service. The guards stretched from eastern Dallas to Arkansas and northern Louisiana.

By early Friday morning, warnings had expired for Texas, but tornado warnings covered northern Louisiana, much of Missouri and as far as Mississippi. The storm is forecast to move into the Ohio and Tennessee valleys on Friday and then continue northeast, the weather service said.

Louisiana State University Shreveport sustained minor damage after a storm hit around 5:45 p.m.

The weather service in Shreveport said it would investigate possible areas of damage in the region to see if tornadoes had developed. Video shared by the agency appeared to show one in Shreveport.

NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported that his crews saw five overturned tractor-trailers on highways north and east of Dallas.

Parts of California buried under snow

The high, damaging winds in parts of the southern US occurred as mountainous areas of southern California remained buried under foot-trapping snow, authorities there said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for 13 counties, and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office said MREs would fly helicopters to affected communities. The California National Guard said Thursday it would send a UH-60 Blackhawk to help.

“We know the roofs are starting to collapse,” San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors President Dawn Rowe, whose district includes some of the hardest-hit areas, said Wednesday.

About 10 feet of snow fell in some of the mountain communities in the county, which lies east of Los Angeles, the county fire department said.

Plowing was underway around the clock to try to clear highways, the California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans, said.

County Fire Chief Dan Munsey said Wednesday that the fire department had responded to nearly 100 rescue calls.

The National Weather Service saying The snow total for Snow Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains was 120 inches, or 10 feet, from February 22 through Wednesday. In Crestline, where the roof of a grocery store collapsed this weekit was 91 inches.

‘This storm kept coming’

Andrew Braggins, 43, said The Associated Press that the roof of his kitchen in Crestline began to sag from the weight of all the snow, prompting him to shovel his roof, where 5 feet had accumulated.

“I have friends a few streets away and they have been without power for days,” Braggins said. “You can stock up for a storm. But this storm kept coming.”

‘Powerful’ storm will bring meteorological hazards

Meanwhile, a “powerful system” was forecast to produce a “multitude of weather hazards” across the eastern third of the country on Friday and Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

The storm is expected to deepen rapidly as it approaches “all-time record low sea level pressure values ​​for parts of the Ohio and Missouri valleys,” it said.

“Continued severe weather and the risk of flash flooding associated with the system will continue through early Friday morning throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley, with the threat moving northeastward throughout the day as strengthening low rises north into the Ohio Valley,” the weather service said. warned.

Thunderstorms were also expected to have the potential to produce damaging wind gusts, as well as small hail and the possibility of isolated tornadoes Friday, prompting the weather service’s Storm Prediction Center to issue an Enhanced Risk Warning for Severe Thunderstorms for the eastern parts of Tennessee. Valley.

The weather service also warned of the possibility of flash flooding across much of the Mid-Mississippi and Ohio valleys, as well as east into the Mid-Atlantic. A moderate risk of excessive rain was possible in parts of northeast Arkansas, southeast Missouri, southern Illinois and southern Indiana, he said.

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