Wild video captured customers fleeing for shelter inside a Walmart as a tornado ripped through the store’s parking lot.
A severe storm system tore across Texas and several neighbouring states on Monday evening, leveling dozens of buildings and leaving at least one person dead.
The Austin area appeared to suffer the brunt of the damage as twisters touched down during rush hour.
One tornado wrought havoc on the parking lot of a Walmart in Round Rock, where an employee filmed video of shoppers racing inside.
“Get inside! Get inside! Run! Run! Run!” the man is heard screaming. “Get away from the windows.”
A woman who didn’t manage to make it inside tweeted photos of her legs severely scraped after she said she was dragged across the lot by strong winds.
Another woman who was traveling in a camper van described her narrow escape into the Walmart before the vehicle was overturned by the twister.
Liz Creason, who had been living in the camper van for several weeks, told AccuWeather correspondent Bill Wadell she began looking for shelter as soon as she saw severe weather warnings.
She ultimately stopped at the Walmart and fled inside, knowing she didn’t want to be in the truck when the tornado arrived.
Ms Creason was unharmed but her van was flipped by powerful winds.
“I’m just so thankful to be alive and that I had the foresight to have the stuff ready because if my jacket and shoes weren’t right there, I just kind of stumbled putting them on and that delayed me but if I had to go digging for a jacket or something and another second went by I don’t know what would have happened,” she told Mr Wadell.
As Texas communities began sifting through wreckage on Tuesday morning, the storm system continued cutting a path to the northeast, with tornado watches issued across parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
