Texans Comb Twisters’ Rubble for More Victims

Cleanup crews sent huge dangling pieces of glass crashing to the pavement from Fort Worth’s skyscrapers Wednesday as rescuers searched for more victims of tornadoes that ripped through the city, killing at least four people.

“We still feel there may be more victims trapped in the debris,” Fire Chief Larry McMillan said.

Four people were killed, one was missing and presumed dead, more than 80 were injured and dozens were left homeless as two twisters blasted windows out of dozens of offices and tore homes apart shortly after the evening rush hour Tuesday.

“Imagine a large bomb going off,” said Sean Finley, who hustled frantic customers down 35 floors to safety from his high-rise restaurant.

The twister stripped the brick walls off a cathedral tower as two women prayed inside.

“It looks like a battlefield and yet God brought us miraculously through,” said Pastor Bob Nichols as he surveyed the damage at Calvary Cathedral International.

About 30,000 people were left without power at the height of the storms, with 2,000 still out Wednesday afternoon, said TXU Corp. spokeswoman Pat Nichols.

Downtown Fort Worth, a city of 480,000 about 30 miles west of Dallas, was sealed off as crews pushed 200-pound panes of glass to the ground from 35 floors up.

Crews went floor by floor in downtown office buildings for a closer look at the damage.

“You will have one building that looks almost unscathed, and next door to that you have a building that looks like it’s downtown Beirut,” said Lt. Gov. Rick Perry.

The search for bodies was centered on seven demolished buildings west of downtown Fort Worth, McMillan said.

Two people were crushed to death--one by a falling wall and the other by a truck trailer that flipped on him. Two others in a car were swept into the Trinity River near Arlington to the east. One body was recovered, and rescuers searched for the other victim.

On Wednesday, a 19-year-old Fort Worth man died at a hospital from injuries he suffered during the storm.

The tornado that hit Arlington cut a path about two miles long and several blocks wide, destroying 93 houses, officials said. It next touched down in the Grand Prairie area about 10 miles to the east, destroying at least eight homes and damaging six.

Glass shards continued to rain from gaping windows of office towers Wednesday, and police barricades kept everybody but emergency workers out of the hardest-hit areas.

The twister did not topple any office buildings but did flatten several one-story light industrial buildings in a warehouse district, which was hit first by the twister that cut a path from west to east.

“It’s total devastation everywhere you look,” Mike Anderson, a Salvation Army spokesman, said of one Arlington neighborhood of mostly two-story houses valued at around $200,000.

Many residents spent the night in cars parked in their driveways rather leave their homes.

Gov. George W. Bush, campaigning in New Jersey, declared Tarrant County a disaster area.