Tornadoes and Flash Floods hit Oklahoma City Area Friday Night

As tornado approaches Norman, fear takes over after seeing devastation in Moore that day.

On Friday, my daughter was here so we toured the devastation that hit Moore with the F-5 tornado.  It looks like a war zone for as far as you can see east and west.  These pictures were taken by my daughter who is also a business journalist:

We saw one home with only the steps and closet underneath remaining, a concrete/steel medical center pretty much destroyed, a post office that is shut from damage, banks destroyed, foundations with nothing left, toys in the lawns with no homes, and the list of devastation keeps going.  The devastation we saw Friday morning is much more then we saw after the May 3, 1999, tornado that hit Moore.  My guess would be the fact that such a huge tornado slowed to almost a standstill at times while it churned and chewed up homes and businesses.   It left you with a feeling how helpless you can be when a tornado takes dead aim on where you live or work.  The images we saw make you stop and think that most of us are not prepared if an F-5 tornado is bearing down at us.

Friday night another round of tornadoes flared up in Western Oklahoma near El Reno along with massive thunderstorms dumping a record amount of rain across the area which meant the storms were rain wrapped and storm chasers could not tell if they were on the ground except for power flashes.  We were watching TV when the tornado approached Will Rogers World Airport and saw the airport radar light go out which meant the airport had some damage as a backup generator should have immediately taken over.  Then it was tracking down I-240 and south and all of a sudden my daughter sees the line has Norman directly in its track After what we had witnessed with the Moore devastation, we decided to load up the car and all of us get out of Norman since the track was only two blocks from where we live.

Neighbors were doing the same as the media were warning people to get underground or as Channel 4 said to leave the area.  No cell phones except for my daughter's with low battery/spotty coverage for text messages from her boyfriend and his friend who were tracking where we should be headed which was south to Purcell but they said to stay off I-35 which was all backed up.  As I drove over to Porter (SR 77) to go south traffic started picking up.  As we crossed out of Norman into the Noble area all of a sudden all the traffic was headed south including in some northbound lanes.

There was traffic for miles - we were in Noble when the local radio said the tornado was coming south out of Norman into Noble but the radio had the wrong info as we  learned a short time later - that tornado had lifted and was headed south of Lake Thunderbird not due south out of Norman.  When we heard Noble is when all lanes started going south to clear people out of Noble.  As we were getting close to Purcell heavy rains started coming down as we were on this huge bridge over a river but it showed on radar according to the guys keeping us informed that rain did not stretch to S. Purcell which is where we ended up.

Chewie, my little fury friend, did really good on the trip except for one time we were almost stopped and he looks out the back of my SUV and sees all the cars behind us with their lights.  He starts really whimpering. Think he realized this wasn't one of his fun excursions he takes with me in town.  He didn't like seeing all the lights behind us is my guess since it was pitch dark.

We had time to get out of the danger zone and took a less traveled road south but even then it had plenty of  other people fleeing Norman a lot of them with pets as we saw at the local McDonald's parking lot.  Except for a few crazy truck drivers everyone was very orderly even allowing cars to pull into the line.  Next time storms fire up in Western Oklahoma like this with multiple tornadoes going in all directions, we are out of here early.  During tornado season will do what we did in fire season in SoCal -- have plastic containers with items you cannot replace filled and ready to go in minutes.

Finally we received the all clear text from the guys to go back to Norman as the heavy rain with huge hail had stopped with no more on the way.  Good thing as my daughter's cell phone was about to die.  We drove back I-35 which was not backed up and took SR 9 to SW 24th and then as we went north on 24th we began to see there were no lights anywhere - pitch dark and water standing in the drainage ditches.  Got home to no lights so my daughter's flashlight on her cell phone got us to a flashlight on my desk so garage door could be opened manually and car driven in the garage.

Lighted candles and then found the message on my cell phone sitting by my chair that said "EXTREME ALERT" Tornado Warning in area take shelter now which was about 20 minutes after we had left.  That was followed by "STRONG ALERT" about the torrential rains and baseball size hail.  Took a flashlight to go look at the green belt behind my home which was filled with water but I could see no damage to my garden which meant if we had hail, it was extremely small.  Potted plants on deck were brought back in the sun room earlier in week due to possible hail - that's the third time pots have been taken inside recently -- good exercise.

At that point that's when I realized how much my shoulders were aching from the last 2 1/2 hours of tension.  Must have been gripping the steering wheel hard trying to stay calm.  Woke up to power and a bright sunny morning Saturday with a mini lake in the green belt which was going down with no damage.  We thought we were home free for me to take my daughter to a wedding shower in OKC.  Then we discovered that roads were flooded out of Norman so it meant taking a road over to I-35 which was a parking lot with the gawkers.  We saw damage in places along I-35 that did not have damage the day before although it wasn't near as devastating but it meant one of the tornadoes had struck Moore again.  We finally cleared the traffic into downtown OKC and dropped my daughter off at the shower and headed back to Norman.

Needed gas but there was no power in the area of Norman gas stations where I normally get gas I planned to get gas at the 7-11 north on Sooner Road but the road was closed to flooding.  After taking my daughter to Bricktown, stopped at three gas stations along I-240 east of the airport in S. OKC and no power but I did see a lake at OCCC and then remembered there was no lake there normally.  Saw one of the huge transmission lines snapped in two and decided only way to go was back to Norman was to take the Turner Turnpike toward Lawton and get off at the Norman exit on SR 9.

Saw devastation along I-44 (Turnpike) from the Moore tornado.  In one place it had thrown around dump trucks like match box trucks and in another a metal bridge was partially in the S. Canadian River.  You could look east and see total devastation as far as you could see.  Was glad to see Riverwind Casino and Love's right across the highway on SR 9.  My SUV only took ten gallons so I had a lot of gas left but with all the traffic jams around the area, gas can go down pretty fast.

We did not realize how much rain had fallen but when I crossed the S. Canadian River on I-35, there were rapids in what is normally an almost dry river bed with little water.  Knew then we had a lot of rainfall and since learned we set a record for amount of rain in a day on May 31st and a record for May for rainfall.  City Hall in OKC had its basement totally flooded so in addition to the tornadoes that destroyed parts of El Reno, there was flooding which took more lives.

Three storm chasers from The Discovery Channel were killed in the El Reno tornado as the tornado changed course rapidly.  One minute the tornado would be going to the NE and then go SE for a while before turning back NE and then south.  Since we moved to Norman in Jan 97 due to a transfer, we have never witnessed a tornado(s) like the ones Friday night going all over the place while being tracked on radar and in the field.

Storm chasers were getting too close as these tornadoes turned rapidly in a different direction.  The Weather Channel had one of their vehicles destroyed and other storm chasers had their vehicles windows damaged along with the vehicle itself.  The tornadoes for the most part were rain wrapped at night which were extremely hard to follow except for the flash from power poles being hit  The professional storm chasers save lives every time.  What has happened is that there are novice storm chasers now on the roads for a thrill which needs to stop and keep the roads cleared for the professional storm chasers.

Best coverage here is Channel 9 with Gary England who stays calm and tries to keep the storm chasers calm as they track the tornadoes.  The whole staff at Channel 9, our CBS affiliate, is first rate.  Their storm chasing helicopter has given all of us a heads up on where the storms are headed.  The data from these storms that the National Weather Service here at the University of Oklahoma is collecting is going to be studied for a long time in hopes of increasing knowledge of storm prediction.

What a weekend - ready for no more storms in the future except soft gentle rain.  One good thing is we are no longer in a drought as I can sit here and almost watch my grass and garden weeds grow.

Tornado Outbreak in Oklahoma Late Sunday Afternoon, May 19, 2013

Oklahoma broadcast media goes live yesterday as chance of tornadoes coming to the ground out of the wall clouds increased.  Video is included today to show what storm chasers were seeing on the ground and in the air.

Always turned to Channel 9 when I hear there is bad weather in the area because they have storm chasers available to go along with a helicopter that chases the big tornadoes.  For those who don't live in our area, thought I would include the video taken by one of the Storm Trackers, Bobby Payne, as he tracked the storm starting in Edmond:

News9.com - Oklahoma City, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports |
This tornado that touched down in the Edmond area was the beginning of the tornadoes touching down in Central Oklahoma destroying home after home in rural areas of this part of the state.

Severe weather produced multiple tornadoes that tore across central Oklahoma, Sunday afternoon. The first tornado touched down near 15th St. between Coltrane and Bryant in the city of Edmond. Damage and debris was reported by News 9 storm chasers. Scanner reports indicate damage in the Thornebrook housing area. One home had its 2nd floor ripped off. 

Mercy Hospital released the following statement concerning the damage sustained to their Edmond facility, still under construction: "Mercy Edmond I-35, our facility under construction in Edmond, sustained damage from today's tornado including broken windows and roof damage. All utilities have been shut off. No one was on site at the time the tornado hit. No one has been injured."

Quite a few of the weather forecasters here are graduates of the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology which is part of the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences which is located with NOAA which consists of the National Weather Service, Radar Operations Center, Storm Prediction Center, National Severe Storms Laboratory, Warning Decision Training Branch on the southern part of the OU campus.  Gary England, Chief Meteorologist at Channel 9, also gives us the weather forecast before every home football game on Sooner Vision so his ties at OU run deep.

We have storm trackers in from around the world in Norman right now.  Late afternoon yesterday James Cantore of The Weather Channel left the Edmond tornado tracking into Carney to join the storm trackers following the one that hit at Lake Thunderbird area in way east Norman and moved on to the Shawnee area.  That wall cloud was huge, mean and nasty looking as it passed over Norman with multiple vortexes.  After the warning hit my cell phone, it looked even nastier as it headed east.  You could see it from my front door after our sirens stopped and you could hear the ones in east Norman still going off.  We had a very small amount of hail with heavy rains for about 15 minutes if that.

When you drive around Norman, you see the vehicles the storm trackers drive plus the ones with all the electronic equipment on their vehicles.  Hardly a day goes by when you are out, you don't see at least one vehicle ready to track a storm.  They are prepared to have a repeat late this afternoon as the dry line refuses to move through from western Oklahoma and we still have the humidity today.  Don't remember running my air conditioning this early in May.  It is a time for windows being open.

Knew it was tornadoes were close when the sirens went off in Norman from another storm to the south as I live a little over a block away from the new sirens which only go off when tornadoes are in your area not the whole county now.  One great thing about living here is that Channel 9 and others track the storms by streets and we get the latest equipment tested on us.  These new sirens would wake you from a sound sleep.

The video from Lake Thunderbird was an amazing display of nature as the tornado increased in size over the Lake which sits in east Norman:


This is destruction that came from that tornado that started over Lake Thunderbird.  Unfortunately, one of the people brought to Norman Regional has now died.  Complete homes were leveled with some homes left with little of what was their homes only minutes before the storm hit.  This was one of the homes hit by that tornado:  

May 20, 2013
Tornado tears through county 

By Jessica Bruha The Norman Transcript 

The Norman Transcript NORMAN — A spring storm packing a single tornado ripped across far eastern Cleveland County on Sunday evening, carrying hail, strong winds and injuring at least six persons, with three in critical condition. 

Officials report there were no confirmed fatalities in Cleveland County related to Sunday’s storm. 

Six patients were transported to Norman Regional Hospital. Five patients were transported by EMSStat, and one was transported by a park ranger from the east Norman/Little Axe/Newalla area, NRHS media relations coordinator Kelly Wells and Norman Fire Deputy Chief Jim Bailey said. 

Wells said some patients were injured from flying debris, some were trapped under homes and others were sucked out of their homes. More patients were expected to arrive overnight as Norman Regional paramedics continued to search the area for survivors. 

Bailey said emergency crews will continue to search throughout the night with the main focus on the east side of the lake where most of the damage occurred. 

Sheriff’s officials reported that much of the damage in Cleveland County was along Indian Hills Road between 168th Avenue Northeast and 192nd Avenue Northeast. 

Road closings, Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Meghan McCormick said, included Indians Hills Road and 168th; Franklin Road and 192nd; 149th and Harrah Road; Harrah and Rolling Oak; and 192nd to 149th Street. 

Several people lost their homes on 156th Avenue Northeast and East Franklin Road.
“I saw the tail of the storm coming toward me, so I drove to the casino,” resident Kenneth Lastinger said. 

The only thing left standing was his porch. As he sorted through debris in his yard, he said was glad his dog was able to weather the storm. 

“He made it through in the demolished, blown-away house,” he said. “Praise the Lord.”
A friend helping Lastinger said the dog was hiding behind a hill when they found him. Pages of the Bible were scattered all across the property from Bibles Lastinger collected, he said. 

As for Sunday night, Lastinger said he had a friend bringing him a tent and a generator to keep out on the property for as long as it’s needed. 

“It happens. It’s never happened to me, but now it has,” he said. 

Read More at the Norman Transcript

In the Shawnee area a semi truck was thrown off the overpass.  This video from Channel 9 shows the devastation in the Shawnee area and the truck that was thrown on to the State highway below near Fire Lake Casino along I-40:

This whole area of Central and Western Oklahoma owes a debt of gratitude to our local news stations who have put money into their storm tracking and radar to bring us up to date weather when there is bad weather in the area.  Channel 9 (CBS) was on the air from the beginning to aftermath last night.  Channel 4 (NBC) and Channel 5 (ABC) also had storm trackers out with wall to wall coverage.

First time I saw Channel 9 in action was the Moore tornado that was one mph short of an F-6 which tore through about six miles from where we lived.  We had just been transferred to Oklahoma and had little to no knowledge except what we saw in the movie Twister.  BTW part of Twister was filmed in this area including the bridge at Lake Thunderbird.  The more data that is collected from the instruments, the more scientists can learn about tornadoes at the NOAA complex at OU which also includes people from around the world.
There was a family in a large shelter that had the second store of their home blown in the storm shelter.

Fortunately, they was enough space for a hand to get a cell phone out and call 911.  Now makers of storm shelters are going to have to find a way to get cell coverage out of their storm shelters.   Have never seen coverage like we have in Oklahoma but hearing other places are now adapting the Oklahoma way of reporting the movement street by street.  When Channel 9 personnel says take cover underground, you know the storm is a major bearing down.

Because of our early warnings and the coverage we get from our local media, the amount of injuries and loss of life is fairly small once again.

One more afternoon to go through and then they said we shouldn't have any more worries until this weekend.  Someday I will get everything planted - hopefully tomorrow!

Stay safe to anyone in a tornado target zone in the Country today and stay tuned to your local media.

Congressman Cole and Congresswoman Fallin returning from DC to survey the damage in the 4th District

The above picture was of a Country Boy grocery store which sat on Highway 9 east of Norman that served the eastern part of the County. Damage similar to that is throughout a 40 square mile area.

Today Congressman Cole will be back in the district shortly to receive briefings from the Sheriff and the Mayor on yesterdays tornadoes that roared through Cleveland County and other parts of his 4th District. There are generator issues caused by the tornado at Lake Thunderbird which is a source of water for the local communities including Norman. This area is on water rationing because there is also trouble at Lake Stanley Draper where Oklahoma City gets some of their water.

Congresswoman Fallin will be in Seminole to view their damage. A helicopter belonging to the OU Medical Center which was on a run was damaged at the Seminole and can no longer fly.

For several days the National Weather Service (NWS) here in Norman was warning residents of Oklahoma that yesterday was going to have the conditions ripe for a tornado outbreak across Oklahoma. They nailed that one. Was out for lunch when the initial warnings hit but nothing much was showing up on radar. Within a short time storms started showing up on radar and a tornado was on the ground in the Yukon area. The outbreak of severe weather including tornadoes exploded from there ahead of a dry line that was moving through the state.

Yesterday was a day for storm chasers. Not only does the NWS use storm chasers but out local TV stations all have storm chasers to video the storms and alert the stations to where the storms are going next and how fast they are growing. If you have power, you watch the local stations track these storms block by block so you know where the storms are going and if the rotation in the wall clouds are on the ground as the tornadoes drop to the group.

The 'Norman' tornado started with a white wisp on the TV screen that was sent back to the station by a storm chaser just a short distance from the National Weather Service and Storms Prediction Center at the corner of Jenkins and Highway 9 in Norman. You could say they were ground zero for the start of what is now dubbed the 'Norman' tornado which continued to grow knocking cars off of Hwy 9 on its way to growing larger and larger reaching at least a mile wide by the time it reached counties to the east of Cleveland County. Storm Chasers in the Channel 9 helicopter sent back pictures as this tornado gained strength and grew over Lake Thunderbird. This tornado then slammed Little Axe and Tecumseh and kept going east causing damage for miles.

There was also a tornado just a few miles north of Norman happening at the same time as the Norman tornado which took out three of the huge high voltage power lines snapping them in two like toothpicks. That one hit Lake Stanley Draper and caused problems for the Oklahoma City water supply. The rotation in the clouds was very visible but the tornadoes in some instances became rain wrapped especially the Norman one that picked up moisture out of Lake Thunderbird where it took out the Marina and tossed boats. The Marina is now floating in the lake.

Another tornado on I-40 closed the interstate due to cars and trucks being tossed around and in the Choctaw area took out Love's Country store where many of us have stopped over the years while traveling I-40 back to OKC/Norman.

Damage is everywhere in the area south and north of the main parts of Norman. We believe because of all the advance warning we had, more lives were not lost or injuries because when the word goes out in Oklahoma the conditions are ripe for tornado outbreaks, people listen. One of the trailer parks that was hard hit has a safe room for residents which meant even though their homes were destroyed they remained safe in the shelter.

There have been seven deaths so far and crews are doing a second search of a 49-square-mile area hard hit by tornadoes Monday night.

We are thankful for having two members of Congress that immediately made plans to return to the area to see how they could help. The 4th District is so fortunate to have Tom Cole as our Congressman because he is always there for the District and this is just one more example.

Congresswoman Fallin is the same way for the 5th District which includes a large portion of Oklahoma City and counties to the east that were hit especially hard.

Our prayers and thoughts are with those who lost loved ones and friends and to the people who are injured and lost everything when their homes were destroyed. Oklahomans will rebuild and once again we will see that spirit of neighbor helping neighbor that this State has the reputation.

One bright spot is the fact that the NWS was right in the center of the Norman tornado forming and the data they will have collected will be priceless to use in tornado prediction.

Read more about yesterday's tornadoes at The Oklahoman