Afternoon storms swept across the Ark-La-Tex being strong winds, heavy rain, and large hail across parts of Harrison County, Caddo Parish, and DeSoto Parish yesterday.  And now, the National Weather Service is looking to see if a tornado touched down.

According to the National Weather Service's Shreveport Facebook page, they will be looking for potential tornado damage in Waskom through south Shreveport and farther southeast in Stonewall through the Coushatta area.

The weather service says on their Facebook page they will use radar data, eyewitness accounts as well as damage indicators to determine the type of system caused the damage.

Generally, a tornado touchdown can be confirmed by looking at the type of damage caused by the storm.  If there is a twist in the trees after a storm passed, that's generally a sign of a tornado.  Another sign is seeing damage to properties on one side of a street, but not another.

Many times, wind damage from strong thunderstorms thought to be from tornadoes actually come from strong straight line winds.

The storms knocked out power to about 21,000 SWEPCO customers across the Ark-La-Tex.  The power company is still working to restore power to customers in Caddo, DeSoto, and Red River Parishes.

The local Red Cross Chapter has a shelter set up for those still without power at the Grace United Methodist Church on Ellerbe Road.  It was at the Christ United Methodist Church, but a power outage there force the organization to relocate.

These storms come after more than ten strong tornadoes ripped through the North Texas town of Granbury, Texas, killing six and injuring many others.  There are still people missing after the storm.

 

More From News Radio 710 KEEL