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A tornado hit an unincorporated community on the Gulf Coast of Texas on Saturday, damaging dozens of structures, cutting power lines, killing at least one person and hospitalizing nearly a dozen people, officials said.
A severe thunderstorm that spawned a tornado hit surrounding areas including Laguna Heights and Port Isabel near South Padre Island around 4 a.m.
Port Isabel Police Chief Robert Lopez said 10 people were injured, two of them in critical condition. Others had minor cuts and bruises.
Authorities confirmed that several structures suffered “extreme damage”.
The highway was closed in the morning as workers cleared debris and downed power lines. Lopez said the road closure was lifted in the afternoon. There were about 35 people in emergency shelters, he added.
A spokesman for the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department said authorities are continuing to investigate the damage.
Angelica Soria, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s office in Brownsville, Texas, said preliminary damage assessments determined that the tornado lasted five minutes on the ground. The damage was consistent with a tornado with wind speeds of 86 to 110 mph.
“The investigation team is still in the process of assessing the damage,” Soria said. “We know it wasn’t very extensive, but we don’t know the exact mileage yet.”
The storm came after severe weather hit Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma this week. The area experienced strong winds and very large amounts of hail.
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