CISCO, Texas – Multiple tornadoes tore through Texas on Saturday, leaving one person dead and others unaccounted for in a sparsely populated farming and ranching area as the system slowly weakened while advancing toward Fort Worth.
Walter Fairbanks, fire chief in Cisco, confirmed there was one fatality when the tornado hit Saturday afternoon near the town.
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Authorities were going house to house to assess the damage, but that proved difficult amid the heavy rainfall, Eastland County Judge Rex Fields said.
“There is a considerable amount of damage,” Fields, who also serves as the county’s emergency services co-ordinator, told The Associated Press. “Homes have been lost.”
The extent of injuries or fatalities wasn’t immediately clear there or in the town of Burkburnett, where a second tornado touched down. A police dispatcher who declined to give her name due to department policy said tornado sirens could be heard in Burkburnett just before 6 p.m.
The storm was about 50 kilometres outside of Fort Worth around 8:30 p.m., but the National Weather Service had cancelled tornado warnings in the counties still in its path.
Associated Press writer Sean Murphy contributed to this report.
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