Tornado Blasts Texas

A tornado touched down near San Antonio yesterday, damaging roughly 50 homes and sweeping others away entirely, the National Weather Service has confirmed. The twister touched down about 25 miles southwest of the city and moved toward it, but never reached it, instead damaging mostly rural property, Reuters reports. The accompanying storm did leave roughly 23,000 San Antonio homes without power, however, and lightning strikes set at least two homes on fire.

It was part of a band of slow-moving storms stretching from the Texas-Mexico border all the way to Kansas. The National Weather Service has issued flash flood warnings in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. As much as 10 inches of water may accumulate in northeastern Texas and southeastern Oklahoma by tomorrow, CNN reports. Indeed, Weather Underground says that the flooding caused by last night's storm was actually more damaging than the tornado itself. (More Texas stories.)