On Wednesday night, a tornado hit central Texas, destroying homes and doing a lot of damage. At the same time, weather experts are warning that the state could be hit by a record-breaking heat wave.
After a tornado did a lot of damage, the city of Temple, which is northeast of Austin, declared a state of emergency and opened a shelter for people who had to leave their homes.
Images released by NBC station KXAN of Austin show that cars were flipped over, power lines were damaged, and whole buildings were knocked down in Temple. No one was hurt or killed there or in the surrounding Bell County area, which was also hit by strong thunderstorms.
A video shared on social media shows damaged buildings in Temple and nearby Belton with broken windows and roofs that are missing.
Many parts of northern Texas, like Dallas and Fort Worth, as well as parts of Oklahoma were under flood alerts Thursday morning.
A lot of the U.S. is still in bad weather on Thursday. From Texas to North Dakota and New England, 23 million people are under warnings. There is a high chance of tornadoes, winds of more than 75 mph, and hail bigger than 2 inches across in Omaha, Nebraska.
And things don’t slow down on Friday: Storm warnings have been sent out for 37 million people from Dallas to Chicago because of an earlier estimate that said it would be mild. People in the Southern Plains will be especially at risk of big hail.
PowerOutage.us, a website that tracks power outages, says that as of 6 a.m. Thursday, more than 110,000 energy users and almost 20,000 in Louisiana were without power.
Texas is in the middle of a heat wave that could break records set 100 years ago. The National Weather Service says the south of the state could see temperatures of more than 115 degrees over the weekend. Austin’s May high score is 104, which was set in 1925.
The weather service said in a forecast early Thursday that nights that are record or almost record warm will not bring much relief to people who don’t have good or regular cooling.
Around a million people in southern Texas were warned of very high temperatures from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. local time (2 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET).
“Drink lots of water, stay in a cool room, avoid the sun, and let family and neighbors know you’re okay.” The weather service office for Austin and San Antonio said, “Never leave young children or pets alone in vehicles under any circumstances.”
At least four people have been reported dead in Iowa because of severe weather. The town of Greenfield was destroyed by a tornado last week, making it a very bad week for tornadoes.