‘It’s Not There Anymore’ At Least 32 Die As Tornadoes Rip Through Central Texas

The deadliest tornadoes in a decade ripped through central Texas from Waco to Austin on Tuesday, wiping out an entire subdivision, killing at least 32 people and injuring scores.

More than 50 homes in the Double Creeks Estate in this small town 40 miles north of Austin were leveled by one of several twisters to hit four counties about 4 p.m.

“It’s not there anymore,” said sheriff’s deputy R.B. Raby. “I don’t know of anything anyone can do. It’s just a flat, vacant field.”

Thirty people were confirmed dead at a temporary morgue set up at the volunteer fire department and rescue workers planned to search for survivors throughout the night.

Bits of clothing hung from barbed-wire fences, telephone poles were snapped in half and an overturned tractor-trailer lay in the middle of a field near scores of dead cattle. Only the driveways remained of many houses.

Hearses trickled in as rescue workers began retrieving bodies. Stunned residents covered in mud wandered around in the rain, crying and consoling each other.

Max Johnson, pastor of the Jarrell Baptist Church, worked to comfort frightened children.

“It’s hard to know what to say, because right now no one knows who’s missing and who’s dead,” Johnson said. “In a town this small, there’s probably not one person who did not know someone killed in this tragedy.”

The swath of destruction was about a mile long and 200 yards wide, but officials said the heart of town, including the school and other city buildings, was spared. The subdivision is two or three miles to the southwest.

Jarrell, a town of less than 1,000 people, was largely destroyed by a tornado in 1989 that killed one, injured 28, and severely damaged or destroyed 35 homes and 12 mobile homes.

“This is worse,” said Janine Brock, a lifelong resident. “It’s going to be awful. They’re going to have to bury so many people.”

Memories of 1989 were still fresh in residents’ minds when Tuesday’s storm hit. “There are still people who were kids at that time that when it gets cloudy, they start to cry,” Johnson said.

Tuesday’s tornadoes were the state’s deadliest since 30 people died and 162 were injured in the far West Texas town of Saragosa on May 22, 1987. The two deadliest tornadoes in Texas history occurred in Waco on May 11, 1953, and in Goliad on May 18, 1902. Both storms killed 114 people.

In Austin, one person was killed when a tornado destroyed two homes around Lake Travis, and a woman drowned in a creek during a storm, city spokesman Carlos Cordova said.

The storms began in Bell and McLennan counties, about 60 miles north of Jarrell, about 3:45 p.m. and moved into Williamson County just north of Austin.

Interstate 35, the main north-south freeway in Central Texas, was closed around Jarrell.

Elsewhere in Williamson County, part of a grocery store’s roof was blown off in Cedar Park, causing the building to collapse. At least eight people were hurt and one was missing in the rubble, said county spokesman John Sneed.