Heat wave has US South sweltering, from tornado-ravaged West Texas town to Florida beaches

Communities from Houston to New Orleans opened cooling centers to bring relief as steamy hot temperatures settled across a broad swath of the U.S. South on Saturday, and beachgoers fled a waterspout that swept ashore on a Florida beach.

Gov. Greg Abbott, meanwhile, visited Perryton in the Texas Panhandle, where officials said more than 1,000 customers were left without electricity after a tornado killed three people late Thursday. The Perryton Ochiltree Chamber of Commerce said it would open a cooling center in the town of 8,000 people, about 115 miles (185 kilometers) northeast of Amarillo, to counteract the effects of the high temperatures that followed the storm.

"At times of events like these, Texans come together," Abbott told reporters as he signed a disaster declaration that he said would "trigger all the resources the state can bring to bear ... to accelerate the ability to rebuild."

The Republican governor said he was shocked to see how much of the town had been destroyed and praised what he called "non-stop heroic efforts by healthcare providers" who he said treated 160 injured people at the local hospital that has just 25 beds.

W. Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, warned that more severe weather was forecast for the area late Saturday, bringing rain, high winds and possibly more tornadoes.

The National Weather Service issued excessive heat warnings through Saturday night along the Gulf Coast from Brownsville, Texas, to Houston. It said heat indexes ranging from near 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 Celsius) in Houston to near 120 F (49 C) at Brownsville and Corpus Christi in Texas. Cooling shelters were set up in cities along the coast and farther inland for residents left without electricity.

"What's really going is the humidity," said Allison Prater, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Fort Worth, Texas. "That's making the heat index, or the 'feels like' temperature really skyrocket."

Prater said the air temperature Saturday in the Dallas area could reach 94 F (34 C), but high humidity would make it feel like 105 F (40.5 C).