Storm Barrels Through Tiny Texas Town, Killing at Least 3

A powerful storm struck the northern Texas town of Matador on Wednesday night, killing at least three people, damaging about a dozen buildings and prompting a search for people who might have been injured or trapped by debris, the authorities said.

Matador, which has about 600 residents, is roughly 290 miles northwest of Dallas and was under a tornado warning as the storm barreled through the area around 8 p.m., said William Iwasko, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Lubbock.

“Based on the damage,’’ he added, “there was most likely a tornado” in Matador, but that will be determined on Thursday.

The mayor of Matador, Pat Smith, who also provides emergency medical services in the town, said in a brief phone interview that at least three people had been killed, that others may be injured and that there was “a whole lot of damage.”

He said that electricity was also out across town, which is the county seat of Motley County.

On the west end of the town, several businesses and homes were destroyed, Mr. Smith said, adding that rescue workers had pulled residents from collapsed houses.

“It’s really, really bad,’ Mr. Smith said as emergency crews were heard shouting directions in the background.

A livestream of the town from KWTV-DT, a television station in Oklahoma City, appeared to show torn buildings as strong winds swayed phone lines and trees.

A storm system producing thunderstorms was moving across the area on Wednesday night, causing the Weather Service to issue warnings for possible hail and tornadoes in northern parts of Texas.

The storm came nearly a week after a tornado pummeled another Texas town, Perryton, where three people were killed and dozens of mobile homes were mangled. That tornado was part of a ferocious series of storms that swept across the South last week.

The storm in Matador also came as a heat dome stalled over much of Oklahoma and Texas.

Texas officials issued an excessive heat warning for the Dallas-Fort Worth region and asked residents in the rest of the state to conserve electricity for fear that the power grid could buckle over several days of triple-digit temperatures.