Ten dead in tornadoes' wake on Texas-Mexico border

EAGLE PASS, Texas — David Sanchez was fixing a car at dusk when the winds began to howl and the rain began to pound his home.

Suddenly, the doghouse flew by. Shingles peeled off the roof. Mesquite trees snapped around him, ripped up by a tornado that cut through this border town Tuesday night. Tornadoes killed at least 10 people in Eagle Pass and across the Rio Grande in Piedras Negras, Mexico.

"I never pray, and I was praying," the 50-year-old mechanic said in Spanish, as his daughter translated.

Two Texas elementary schools and a church were wrecked, and hundreds of homes on both sides of the border were damaged or destroyed by at least two tornadoes. The storm cut across a 4-square-mile area and was so powerful that some mobile homes had yet to be found Wednesday, including one where a neighbor of Sanchez lived with her children. No one was home there at the time.

Night was falling as the storm passed, adding to the horror and frustration as residents poured into the streets, calling out to each other and using flashlights to look for people who needed help.

One mobile home had been thrown across a street and slammed into Rosita Valley Elementary School. All five people inside were killed, including a girl believed to be no older than 6.

"It was a whole family, and they were all together, probably like they were huddling," said police Officer Ezekiel Navjas.

"I've never seen nothing like this," Navjas said, shaking his head as he walked down a dirt road early Wednesday.

At least two other people were killed in the Eagle Pass area, and three died in Piedras Negras.

About 170 people were injured, 81 of them in Eagle Pass, where four remained in critical condition Wednesday. More than 1,300 people, mostly in Piedras Negras, sought refuge in shelters.

Dozens of search-and-rescue crews scoured the twisted remains of houses and trailer homes early Wednesday, going lot to lot, gingerly stepping into homes broken open like dollhouses.

Maverick County Judge Jose Aranda said all residents on the Texas side were accounted for Wednesday, but as many as 200 families were left homeless.

Two people died elsewhere as the huge weather system plowed through the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. Lightning started a fire that killed a 101-year-old man near Shreveport, La., and one person was killed when high winds swamped a boat on a southeastern Arkansas lake.

The severe weather also spun off tornadoes Tuesday in Oklahoma and Colorado, caused flooding in Iowa and Nebraska and piled snow more than a foot deep in the Rockies.

National Guard units attached to the Border Patrol were assisting local agencies in their door-to-door search and rescue efforts, Fire Chief Rogelio de la Cruz said.