Deadly Matador, Texas, tornado receives rating from National Weather Service

MATADOR, Texas - A tornado that killed four people and injured 15 others when it ripped through Matador, Texas, on Wednesday has been rated an EF-3 by the National Weather Service.

According to a storm survey released Saturday by the NWS office in Lubbock, Texas, the twister touched down north of Matador at 7:51 p.m. and was on the ground for 9.4 miles while it carved a winding path of destruction through the town. It dissipated near a rest stop south of town about 20 minutes later.

Surveyors found damage that indicated the cyclone had maximum winds of 165 mph, placing it in the EF-3 range of the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

Originally, authorities reported nine people were injured by the twister. However, the NWS' storm survey showed 15 injuries had been attributed to the tornado.

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Death and destruction

Residents of the town told FOX Weather’s Will Nunley that they believe a third of the town of less than a thousand people had been destroyed.

"There’s some great people who got hit all the way down through here," Leslie Jameson, a Matador resident, said Thursday. "I can’t – It’s just hard to describe. We’re just sitting here kind of dumbfounded. Don’t know where to start or what to do, but we’ve got to start somewhere."

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Deana Washington, who lives in Matador, said she, her husband and their grandchildren survived the terrifying twister by sheltering in their bathroom with pillows over their heads.

"I told them to get into the bathtub and lie down," she told FOX Weather’s Amy Freeze during Weather Command on Friday. "And I put king-size pillows on them, and I said, 'Oh God, you’ve got to protect us.'"

Washington said most of the fatalities from the tornado happened near her home. She said one victim died at a dollar store across the road, and a truck driver was killed in his rig not far from her home. She said a third person was killed just down the road from her house.

"It was a devastating thing that people didn’t survive through," Washington said.

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The Matador tornado is the deadliest twister in Texas since 2015, according to the National Weather Service. That tornado ripped through Dallas County and killed 13 people.

Including the Matador fatalities, at least 73 people across the U.S. have been killed by tornadoes this year. Three of them died June 15 during an EF-3 tornado in Perryton, Texas, about 180 miles north of Matador.