Oklahoma Tornado

I swear I have been doing these blogs more than I would like too in the past year. From the Shootings in Colorado and Newtown, and horrible disasters such as Superstorm Sandy and now this Oklahoma Tornado.



Rescue teams combed through pulverized buildings and splintered homes Tuesday after one of the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history blasted through Oklahoma City and its suburbs, killing at least 24 people, including nine children.

The confirmed death toll from the Oklahoma medical examiner was lowered from an earlier figure of 51, illustrating the confusion in what was left of the shattered city of Moore. Authorities cautioned that the toll could change again.

In Moore, where police said 19 people had been killed, entire blocks appeared as though they had been razed, and cars were mangled beyond recognition. Piled up where houses once stood were scraps of wood, shredded clothes, glass and metal.

Gov. Mary Fallin said at least 237 people were injured. President Barack Obama called it “one of the most destructive tornadoes in history.”

Authorities said they were still searching Plaza Towers Elementary School, where seven children were reported killed, but said search dogs had not found anyone else left inside.

“It’s absolutely huge. It’s horrific,” the governor said on NBC’s TODAY. “It looked like somebody set off something that destroyed structures. Not blocks, but miles.”

She said that rescuers had trouble just figuring out what they were looking at because “the streets are just gone.” Authorities hoped to have every home, car and business in Moore searched by nightfall, the fire chief said.

The threat was not over: Lightning flashed over rescue and cleanup crews, and forecasters warned that more “large and devastating” tornadoes were possible, with Dallas and other big cities in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas also at risk.

The death toll was revised after authorities determined that some people had been counted twice in the chaos after the storm, said Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner.

The dead included the 19 in Moore and five in southern neighborhoods of Oklahoma City, said Moore police Sgt. Jeremy Lewis. The children killed included the seven at Plaza Towers and one at Briarwood Elementary School, he said.

Terry Watkins of the Department of Emergency Management said 101 people had been found alive by search teams. Survivors described a tornado of remarkable size and power — weather authorities said it packed wind of up to 200 mph — and marveled that they had made it out alive.

Children from Plaza Towers told of hearing sirens and running into a hall for cover, some still carrying their math books. A teacher, Rhonda Crosswhite, said she huddled with students in a bathroom stall and draped herself over them for cover as the storm hit.

“One of my little boys, he just kept saying, ‘I love you, I love you, please don’t die with me, please don’t die with me,’” she told TODAY. “But we’re OK. And we made it out, and it finally stopped.”

She said all her students were accounted for.

Damian Britton, a fourth-grader, credited “Miss Crosswhite” with saving his life. He estimated it took about five minutes for the twister to pass through before the students emerged from cover to survey the damage and check on their classmates.

“It was just a disaster,’’ he said. “There was just a bunch of stuff thrown around and the cars were tipped over, and it smelled like gas.”

The tornado tore the roof off the elementary school about 3 p.m. local time. It was not clear how many children still were missing.

Rescuers walked through mile after mile of obliterated homes on Monday night, listening for voices calling out from the wreckage. At the St. Andrews United Methodist Church, parents listened as the names of surviving children were read out through a bullhorn.

On Tuesday, families surveyed what was left. Robert and Cristopher Foster, two brothers who live in apartments, said they returned to their parents’ house in Moore and found utter destruction.

“There’s cars rolled over in the front yard,” Cristopher Foster said. “The neighbors had a car through their home. There’s just nothing left.”

His brother added: “We were trying not to cry as we were going through because, I mean, there’s nothing. People are walking up and down the streets. It’s really upsetting to look at. We grew up there. That’s our whole childhood. And it’s all flattened now.”

They said it was hours before they knew the whole family was safe.

The twister cut a path similar to a tornado outbreak that ravaged Oklahoma and Kansas on May 3, 1999, killing 46 people and damaging or destroying more than 8,000 homes. Wind in that outbreak was clocked at 318 mph, the fastest ever recorded.

The National Weather Service estimated this tornado reached wind of 190 mph, but meteorologists said that estimate was still preliminary because they had not reached the worst damage.

The twister tore a 17-mile path over 40 minutes, said Rick Smith of the weather service. He said the first severe thunderstorm warning had gone out 44 minutes before the tornado touched down, and the first tornado warning 16 minutes ahead. Fallin said the storm was two miles wide.

“This was the storm of storms,” Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said.

Obama declared a major disaster, making federal aid available to people in five counties.

“In an instant, neighborhoods were destroyed, dozens of people lost their lives, many more were injured, and among the victims were young children trying to take shelter in the safest place they knew, their school,” he said from the White House. “So our prayers are with the people of Oklahoma today.”

Expressions of grief and support came from across the world. Queen Elizabeth II extended her deepest sympathies, and Pope Francis said on Twitter: “I am close to the families of all who died in the Oklahoma tornado, especially those who lost young children. Join me in praying for them.” House Speaker John Boehner ordered flags at the Capitol to half-staff.

Relief efforts sprang up. The Red Cross said it was opening a shelter, and the University of Oklahoma opened some of its housing for displaced families. People took to Facebook in hopes that storm victims might reclaim family photos that landed in yards many miles away.

Aerial pictures of the destruction brought to mind Joplin, the Missouri town virtually wiped off the map two years ago when an EF5 tornado killed 158 people and caused $2.8 billion in damage.

Joplin city officials said Monday they were sending a team of 10 officers and three firefighters to Moore to help. “Giving back in whatever way we can,” the mayor said on Twitter.

The tornado Monday also came one day after another cluster of storms in Oklahoma that killed two elderly men in the town of Shawnee. Tens of millions of people from Texas to the Great Lakes — an area covering 55 million people — had been warned to brace for the severe weather.