Thread: Oklahoma City Tornado

Two Mile Wide EF5 Tornado Barrels Through Oklahoma City Suburbs, 2 Elementary Schools Flattened, Hundreds Feared Dead... Developing...

A mile-wide tornado churned through Oklahoma City's suburbs Monday afternoon, causing significant property damage for the second day in a row, as part of a severe weather outbreak that was expected to spread in other parts of the Plains and Midwest.

A massive black-and-blue cloud dragged across the landscape just south of Will Rogers World Airport.

Television video showed debris from homes and businesses being carried aloft as the twister rolled through Moore, a community on the south side of Oklahoma City. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

In advance of the storm, the Oklahoma House of Representatives stopped work so Capitol employees could take shelter in the basement. Television and radio broadcasters urged residents to take shelter because the storm's strength and size "We're just waiting to see what happens. It's a mile-wide tornado. It's still grinding out," said Mark Meyers, a spokesman for the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office. "We are currently on standby for tornado response. Whatever happens, we'll be ready to respond."

The strongest winds on earth -- 302 mph -- were recorded near Moore during a tornado on May 3, 1999.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman had predicted a major outbreak of severe weather Monday in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

At least 51 killed as tornado tears through Oklahoma, leaving miles of debris
By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News - updated 16 minutes ago



A enormous tornado roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs and killed at least 51 people Monday, pulverizing block after block of homes, tearing the walls off an elementary school and leaving behind miles of mangled cars and splintered wood.

Crews frantically searched the wreckage and were only beginning to get a sense of the destruction. Officials warned the death toll could climb. At one hospital, 85 patients, including 65 children, were being treated for minor to critical injuries.

“The whole city looks like a debris field,” said Mayor Glenn Lewis of the city of Moore, which appeared to be the hardest hit.

At Plaza Towers Elementary School, authorities said there were casualties but could not specify how many or give details. The tornado tore the roof off the school about 3 p.m., and authorities kept hysterical parents back because it was too loud to hear screams for help. A teacher told NBC affiliate KFOR that she draped herself on top of six children in a bathroom to shelter them.

It was not clear how many children were missing. Students in fourth, fifth and sixth grade were evacuated to a church, but students in lower grades had sheltered in place, KFOR reported. More than two hours after the tornado struck, several children were pulled out alive.

The Weather Channel said the twister was a mile wide at its base, and a reporter for KFOR said it kicked up a cloud of debris perhaps two miles wide. The National Weather Service initially classified the storm as an EF4, the second-strongest type, with winds of 166 to 200 mph.

“It seems that our worst fears have happened today,” said Bill Bunting, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Norman, Okla.

As the death toll steadily climbed, television footage showed a landscape shattered — not the arbitrary damage of a tornado that leaves some homes untouched, but vast and utter obliteration.

Emergency workers stepped gingerly around piles of wreckage left on the foundations of homes. Other people simply walked around dazed, marveling that nothing was left of their houses — and in many cases that they themselves were alive. Fires broke out in some places.

“I lost everything,” one man said as he walked through the ruins of a horse farm. “We might have one horse left out of all of them.”

Tiffany Thronesberry told The Associated Press that her mother, Barbara Jarrell, called her and screamed: “Help! Help! I can’t breathe! My house is on top of me!”

At one hospital in Moore, cars were “piled like Hot Wheels” in the parking lot, and police were searching them one by one and spray-painting X’s to mark them clear of victims, said Kurt Gwartney, news director for radio station KGOU.

An Oklahoma emergency management spokesman said a hospital was being evacuated after sustaining severe damage, and 16 ambulances were being sent to move patients. It was not clear whether it was the same hospital.

The tornado struck at mid-afternoon and tore a 20-mile path, said Rick Smith, another weather service meteorologist. He said it was on the ground for 40 minutes. Much of the storm’s rampage was captured on live television, perhaps alerting people in its path to seek shelter.

President Barack Obama pledged the full help of the federal government. Gov. Mary Fallin asked the people of Oklahoma for patience and promised: “We will bring every single resource out that we can.”

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.

In addition to Plaza Towers, Briarwood Elementary School was heavily damaged, KFOR reported.

An aerial view of some of the destruction caused by Monday's tornado.

Search and rescue teams converged on a staging area at the Warren Theater, which was also damaged, as the tornado churned toward other Oklahoma towns. The storms were expected to continue through the evening.

Grasping for comparisons, some people said it looked like Joplin, the Missouri town virtually wiped off the map two years ago when a tornado — this one an EF5 — blew through and killed 158 people.

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

For those living in Oklahoma, the ferocity was reminiscent of May 3, 1999, when a tornado registered wind of more than 300 mph, left 46 dead and damaged or destroyed more than 8,000 homes.

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 more severe weather Monday.

The Sunday storms destroyed mobile homes, flipped trucks and sent people across 100 miles running for cover. In Kansas, a weather forecaster was forced off the air as a tornado bore down on his station.

“You can see where there’s absolutely nothing, then there are places where you have mobile home frames on top of each other, debris piled up,” Mike Booth, the sheriff of Pottawatomie County, Okla., told The Associated Press. “It looks like there’s been heavy equipment in there on a demolition tour.”

Fallin declared a state of emergency for 16 counties on Sunday and added five Monday.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013...f-debris?lite=

Moore Oklahoma Tornado Damage looks like a Nuclear Bomb Exploded.

Monster Tornado Tears Through Oklahoma City
By Sky News US Team | Sky News – 8 minutes ago.

One of the strongest tornadoes ever recorded has ripped through Oklahoma City, killing at least 51 people and destroying everything in its path.

The ferocious tornado flattened entire neighbourhoods in the southern suburb of Moore with winds of up to 200 mph, leaving buildings on fire and landing a direct blow to a school.

Several children were pulled alive from the wreckage of Plaza Towers Elementary School after the devastating, mile-wide tornado reduced the building to heaps of rubble and twisted metal.

Rescuers were passing the rescued children down a "human chain" to get them to medical personnel for treatment.

Roughly 500 students attend the school in the suburban town of Moore. It is unclear whether any had been evacuated before the twister hit, but local media reported some children were taken to a nearby church.

Firefighters were at the scene digging through the school's debris to reach any children possibly trapped inside.

A second elementary school, Briarwood, was also hit but did not appear to have sustained casualties. Moore's hospital was also badly damaged.

Emergency crews pledged to work through the night across the city to look for survivors.

The Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the 51 deaths, and said children were among the fatalities.

Officials at two hospitals said they were treating more than 140 patients, including around 70 children. Dozens of people were said to be in a critical condition.

President Barack Obama spoke to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin on the phone and promised the state all the help it needs.

Ms Fallin told a news conference "hearts are broken" for the parents looking for their children.

"This is a very sad day for the state of Oklahoma - a very hard day and very tragic day," she said.

"Our prayers and our thoughts are with all the Oklahoma families that have been hit hard by this terrible storm.

"We are doing every single thing that we can to assist those that are in need right now."

She said communication was hard with power lines and mobile phone towers hit by the storm.

The governor sald she had deployed 80 Oklahoma National Guard members to help with the recovery effort and assist search and rescue teams who she said were "looking under every single piece of debris" to find anyone that might be injured or lost.

She had already declared a state of emergency for 16 Oklahoma counties due to the tornado threat on Sunday, and added five more on Monday after the storms hit the state capital.

One mother described how she and her children took refuge in their bathtub as the tornado tore their house apart.

"My husband told us to get in the bathtub immediately and put on a mattress," she said.

She said she had to hold her daughter's hair to stop her slipping away when the tornado struck.

The National Weather Service gave the twister a preliminary EF-4 classification - on a five-point scale - with winds up to 200mph.

Weather service meteorologist Kelsey Angle said fewer than 1% of all tornadoes ever reach EF-4 or EF-5 levels.

Several other tornado warnings were also in effect following the devastating twister.

It came just a day after two people were confirmed killed by a tornado nearby .

Residents of Moore had been urged to take shelter as the violent storm moved through the area.

The broad, dark funnel cloud was on the ground for 35 minutes before dissipating.

KFOR-TV's news helicopter showed huge swaths of buildings and homes completely levelled, with nothing but wreckage left. Some homes were taken down to their concrete slabs.

Sky News US Correspondent Dominic Waghorn described the damage, saying "whole neighbourhoods just wiped off the map, homes literally stripped to their foundations".

Aerial footage showed vehicles crumpled and overturned in piles of debris on the motorway, and buildings that had become unrecognisable jumbles of rubble.

Emergency personnel and volunteers had begun going door-to-door searching for victims.

Utility workers were in an urgent rush to shut off electricity and gas to the area to prevent further danger from live power lines or natural gas leaks.

Footage of the storm showed the monster twister slowly moving through the area and the flashes of power lines blowing.

The huge tornado was the most recent in a series of twisters that has ravaged towns in the midwest US in recent days as part of a line of violent storms that have stretched from the Canadian border down into Texas.

This part of the country is known as "tornado alley" and residents are trained in how to take shelter. Most towns and cities are equipped with storm sirens that can warn of a coming tornado a half hour before it hits.

The same suburb was hit hard by a tornado in 1999. That storm had the distinction of producing the highest winds ever recorded near the Earth's surface of up to 302 mph.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/monster-tor...6.html#3cM8Fsm

Kids rescued from rubble at Okla. elementary
Associated Press – 4 hrs ago

.....MOORE, Okla. (AP) — Several children have been pulled out of the rubble alive at a school in an Oklahoma City suburb.

An Associated Press photographer saw several children being pulled out of what was left of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., on Monday after a massive tornado hit the region.

Rescue workers lifted children from the rubble before they were passed down a human chain and taken to a triage center set up in the school's parking lot.

The school is southwest of Oklahoma City. Its roof appears mangled and the walls had fallen in or had collapsed.

The National Weather Service said the tornado's preliminary classification was an EF-4, with winds up to 200 mph.

http://news.yahoo.com/kids-rescued-r...230045273.html

Hospitals treat more than 120 after Okla. tornado
Associated Press – 30 mins ago

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Officials at two hospitals say they've been treating more than 120 patients, including about 50 children, since a massive tornado hit suburban Oklahoma City.

Spokeswoman Brooke Cayot (KAY'-ot) says nine of 57 patients who are being treated at the Integris Southwest Medical Center were listed in critical condition after Monday afternoon's tornado. Nineteen were in serious condition and 29 were listed in fair or good condition.

She said five of the patients were children who have since been treated and released.

OU Medical Center spokesman Scott Coppenbarger says his hospital and a nearby children's hospital are treating approximately 65 patients, including 45 children. The hospital previously said the number was higher, but later revised its patient count.

He said those patients ranged from minor injuries to critical condition.

http://news.yahoo.com/hospitals-trea...005810274.html

Dem. leader (already) blames tragic tornado on Republicans
By: John Hayward ~ 5/21/2013 10:18 AM

It didn’t take long for someone from the global warming death cult to speak up and politicize the horrible tornado that struck Oklahoma on Monday, killing dozens of adults and children. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), speaking from the Senate floor while bodies were still being pulled from the rubble:

So, you may have a question for me: Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings and disgrace ourselves? I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. We are stuck in this together. When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms. It hits Oregon with acidified seas, it hits Montana with dying forests. So, like it or not, we’re in this together.

You drag America with you to your fate. So, I want this future: I want a Republican Party that has returned to its senses and is strong and a worthy adversary in a strong America that has done right by its people and the world. That’s what I want. I don’t want this future. I don’t want a Republican Party disgraced, that let its extremists run off the cliff, and an America suffering from grave economic and environmental and diplomatic damage because we failed, because we didn’t wake up and do our duty to our people, and because we didn’t lead the world. I do not want that future. But that’s where we’re headed. So I will keep reaching out and calling out, ever hopeful that you will wake up before it is too late.

Boy, would this guy be in trouble, if the Democrat Party had minimal standards of human decency. But since their Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, has been known to use tragic deaths as leverage for his dopey Sequester Terror arguments, Whitehouse probably doesn’t have to fear any sort of censure. http://www.humanevents.com/2013/03/1...sequestration/

Well, maybe the media will make his disgusting comments common knowledge and provoke public outrage. Oh, come on, it’s a sad morning, you needed a good laugh. You’re welcome.

The Senator isn’t the only one to use the ruins of Moore as a political soapbox. Here’s Glenn Thrush of Politico, via Twitter: “It is striking that Oklahoma’s senators are 1) a federal spending skeptic and 2) global warming denier.”

You’ve got to hand it to these primitives – they’re persistent about pushing their death cult. UNGA BUNGA! Sky gods angry! Sky gods send tornado to kill deniers! You pay or sky gods kill again!

Once again, for the benefit of anyone still in the sway of cult propaganda: There is no global warming. The “deniers,” like Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), were right all along. http://www.humanevents.com/2012/08/0...-greatest-hoax

Oklahoma’s other Republican senator, Tom Coburn, is indeed a “federal spending skeptic.” He publishes his skepticism every year in an eye-popping “Wastebook.” Why would it be “striking” that someone who actually cares about massive government waste and abuse would be Senator from a state hit by a devastating storm? http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/...5-8522c7e1a40e http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ust-be-offset/

Coburn is currently taking some heat for insisting that federal hurricane relief efforts be offset by cuts to other budget items. The heat comes from people who think federal subsidies for Moroccan pottery classes are more important than disaster relief for American citizens. Why should Uncle Sam’s free-wheeling spending on vote-buying and whimsical indulgences be hindered by the performance of his actual duties? Can we finally do away with “government by panic” and ask our representatives to think logically for a change?

Salon contributor Sally Kohn perched atop a chunk of Oklahoma rubble to sob about unjust mortgage foreclosures: “My thoughts tonight are will too many Americans without homes, whether because of unthinkable tornadoes or unjust foreclosures.” Could you please keep all the noise from the roaring wind down, Oklahomans? It’s drowning out Sally Kohn’s politics. http://twitchy.com/2013/05/20/sally-...nado-homeless/

Then there’s the very special case of liberal “comedian” Lizz Winstead, who decided it was a great time to make a “joke” about how those hellish teabaggers out in flyover country had it coming: “This tornado is in Oklahoma so clearly it has been ordered to only target conservatives.” http://twitchy.com/2013/05/20/too-so...tornado-humor/

After facing a storm of outrage on Twitter, Winstead took the coward’s exit and deleted her offensive Tweet, but not before making a tortured effort to explain that she was really making fun of the “hypocrisy” of other people who think natural disasters are divine punishment for unacceptable politics.

She also claimed she didn’t know how bad the damage was when she made her little “joke.” What news accounts could she possibly have been listening to? Would her “joke’ have been okay if, say, only a handful of people died, and none of them were children? Or if nobody died, they just had to watch their homes destroyed?

Who knows what goes on inside any of these hollow, hateful minds? Here’s a tip for the future, guys: just back away from the keyboard until the death toll has been finalized, and try to think of the victims instead of your political enemies when you speak or type. The ongoing hyper-politicization of American life should not extend to tragic deaths.

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/05/2...hall-of-shame/

Interactive looks of the Moore tornado:
1) Before/after imagery: http://wxch.nl/14S2S2Y
2) The entire damage swath: http://wxch.nl/14S2S32

I've heard folks ask why more people in Tornado Alley don't reinforce their homes or a room with cinderblock or concrete walls ??

Well, with an EF5 strength tornado, no above ground structure is safe. Take a look at this "splinter" through a concrete curb - wow!

This is the bank vault that saved 24 people during Oklahoma tornado
1 day ago

It's a testament to ... something. Awesome vault construction? The human will to survive? Either way, the fact that 24 people took shelter in this vault at the Tinker Federal Credit Union branch during the Oklahoma tornado, and the fact that it's still standing amid the rubble of the utterly destroyed building are both very impressive. The bank manager's dedication is admirable as well, remaining with the safe even after being rescued until it could be locked up and secured again. Two dozen people have been confirmed killed in the EF5 tornado (the highest grade), and its 17-mile path resulted in at least $1 billion in damage

http://now.msn.com/bank-vault-shelte...?ocid=ansnowex

Incredibly helpless feeling as we watch coverage in OKC area. Motorists on packed highways are being told to abandon their cars. Watch live here: http://www.kctv5.com/category/215375...ivestream-mva2


'Large, violent' tornado on the ground in storm-weary Oklahoma
Updated: May 31, 2013 7:14 PM CDT

(RNN) - A storm the National Weather Service called "large" and "violent" touched down in central Oklahoma Friday, making its way along I-40 toward Oklahoma City.

A couple of storm chasers recorded a video inside a tornado in Smith County, KS, Monday afternoon.More >How to help Oklahoma tornado victims

Updated: Friday, May 24 2013 4:18 PM EDT2013-05-24 20:18:48 GMTMay 24, 2013 3:18 PM CDTMay 24, 2013 3:18 PM CDT

Cameras caught the tornado developing, then touching down near El Reno, OK, around 6 p.m. central time. The twister appeared to land in a rural field and have multiple vortices, meaning the tornado could contain more than one funnel.

El Reno is about 30 miles west of Oklahoma City. The National Weather Service issued a tornado emergency for the city, which has a population of just over 17,000 residents. A tornado emergency was also issued for Oklahoma City and surrounding suburbs, including Moore, a town still picking up the pieces after being hit by an EF-5 tornado May 20.

State troopers shut down portions of I-40, in an attempt to get motorists out of the storm's path.


At Will Rogers Airport, in Oklahoma City, passengers have been evacuated to an underground tunnel and flights are grounded.

The NCAA Women's College World Series was delayed. The first game featuring Washington vs. Tennessee was supposed to begin at 6 p.m. central time.

A second tornado followed closely behind the first.

Ahead of Friday's storms, the National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for parts of central and northeastern Oklahoma, calling it a "particularly dangerous situation" capable of producing intense tornadoes and up to 4 inch hail.

The watch runs until midnight central time.

Four tornadoes were reported Thursday in Arkansas and Oklahoma, three in Oklahoma and one in Arkansas. Nine people were injured, all in Arkansas.

Authorities in Tull, AR, said a driver died Thursday when a tree was knocked down onto his car, according to the Associated Press.


Large wall clouds moved eastward across Oklahoma, and rotational clouds briefly touched down near Perkins and Ripley northeast of Oklahoma City about 3 p.m. CST, according to KWTV.

A tornado also touched down in Broken Arrow, OK, a suburb of Tulsa, at approximately 8:40 p.m. CST. Meteorologist Pete Snyder said the tornado caused "considerable damage."

However, the National Weather Service stated the tornado did not appear to be as strong as the one that struck Moore, OK, last week.

Strong winds were reported in Moore, OK, but the weather didn't cause significant problems to the recovery effort there.

Two homes were destroyed in Oden, AR.

In Garland County, AR, damage to trees and property was reported at Royal.

The outdoor Wakarusa Music Festival on Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, AR, was postponed Thursday and will be rescheduled. Snoop Lion (formerly Snoop Dogg), the Black Crowes and Widespread Panic were among the scheduled acts.

About 15,000 people took shelter in their cars to escape high winds and lightning, according to the Southwest Times.

According to an Associated Press report, tornadoes were spotted in Montgomery and Clark counties in western Arkansas. At least nine people were injured by the tornadoes, and two others were injured by lightning. Emergency Management spokesperson reported one destroyed home.

Lightning was blamed for a fire that destroyed two floors of a condominium building in northwestern Indiana.

Severe thunderstorms also caused property damage in Onawa.

So far, there have been no fatalities to report from the outbreak of dangerous weather that has been taking aim at the nation's midsection all week.

http://www.kctv5.com/story/22465733/...weary-oklahoma