The Perils of Living in Oklahoma

Last night was the the first time that a tornado has come within five miles of my house. It was a really intense couple of hours as tornadoes were just popping up everywhere and landing with unpredictability. One passed by the OU campus blowing out windows and causing a lot of damage and it passed over a really busy street during rush hour and luckily no one was seriously hurt. Here is a video of it crossing that street. This is the one that was just miles from the house and we could see it in the horizon from the front porch. What was so strange is that this particular tornado formed in a matter of minutes, barely giving storm spotters any warning to activate the sirens.

It is a really eerie feeling when tornadoes happen. We were eating dinner with the news on in the background when I started hearing hail and rain hit the house and then almost immediately the winds picked up. The intense rain, winds, and pea sized hail lasted just a few minutes then all of sudden it stopped and the sky was a weird greenish haze. But it was like the brakes were hit. My hair was standing on my arms and you just get this sense that something bad is going to happen. My oldest boy Parker who was standing at the door with me said, "Are the storms gone, daddy? I told them to go away." I told him that I didn't know and when I turned around my wife was shaking and crying hollering at the boys to get in the middle closet and hide. Then the sirens went off. You see, my wife lived in the Midwest City/Del City part of Oklahoma when the big one hit on May 3rd, 1999. That tornado was the strongest ever recorded with speeds of 301 miles per hour and caused massive destruction. She knew what was about to happen. But this tornado warning had a different sense of panic. In 1999, she only had to protect her cat, not two children. Then it happened. The news in the background said that there was a tornado on the ground in Norman Oklahoma around Hwy 9, heading towards the OU campus. As I looked in that direction, the winds suddenly picked up, but in reverse. The trees were bending to the South instead of the North and you could hear a light rumble....then there it was off in the distance just moving across the horizon to the Southeast from my house. I told my wife that we were OK as it went South of us and she just stood there hugging the boys, watching it disappear in the tree line.

We were lucky but quite a few others were not. One of the hardest hit places was a truck stop to the Northeast on I-40 and Choctaw. There are additional images of it on the video above. They confirmed one fatality there as a child was not able to get to shelter and was killed by flying debris. This was from a tornado touched down about five miles North of our house and went through the city of Moore and headed in that direction about 15 minutes prior to our scare. The nickname for this area in tornado alley and I can see why, just driving to work this morning and seeing where it crossed on I-35, it looks like a bowling ball rolled through the fences and trees, knocking them all down. According to the weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow, more storms with the possibility of tornadoes so it may be another interesting night.

Here is a great video of what it was like.