Vast Oklahoma Tornado Kills at Least 51 - The New York Times
Vast Oklahoma Tornado Kills at Least 51
Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press
A child was pulled from the rubble of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., on Monday. More Photos »
By NICK OXFORD and MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: May 20, 2013 169 Comments
MOORE, Okla. — A giant tornado, a mile wide or more, killed at least 51
people, 20 of them children, as it tore across parts of Oklahoma City
and its suburbs Monday afternoon, flattening homes, flinging cars
through the air and crushing at least two schools.
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The injured flooded into hospitals, and the authorities said many people
remained trapped, even as rescue workers struggled to make their way
through debris-clogged streets to the devastated suburb of Moore, where
much of the damage occurred.
Amy Elliott, the spokeswoman for the Oklahoma City medical examiner,
said at least 51 people had died, including the children, and officials
said that toll was likely to climb. Local hospitals reported at least
145 people injured, 70 of them children.
Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore was reduced to a pile of twisted
metal and toppled walls. Rescue workers were able to pull several
children from the rubble, but on Monday evening crews were still
struggling to cut through fallen beams and clear debris amid reports
that dozens of students were trapped. At Briarwood Elementary School in
Oklahoma City, on the border with Moore, cars were thrown through the
facade and the roof was torn off.
“Numerous neighborhoods were completely leveled,” Sgt. Gary Knight of
the Oklahoma City Police Department said by telephone. “Neighborhoods
just wiped clean.” He said debris and damage to roadways, along with
heavy traffic, were hindering emergency responders as they raced to the
affected areas.
A spokeswoman for the mayor’s office in Moore said emergency workers were struggling to assess the damage.
“Please send us your prayers,” she said.
Brooke Cayot, a spokeswoman for Integris Southwest Medical Center in
Oklahoma City, said 58 patients had come in by about 9 p.m. Another 85
were being treated at Oklahoma University Medical Center in Oklahoma
City.
“They’ve been coming in minute by minute,” Ms. Cayot said.
Keli Pirtle, a spokeswoman for the National Weather Service in Norman,
Okla., said the tornado touched down at 2:56 p.m., 16 minutes after the
first warning went out, and traveled for 20 miles. It was on the ground
for 40 minutes, she said. It struck the town of Newcastle and traveled
about 10 miles to Moore, a populous suburb of Oklahoma City.
Ms. Pirtle said preliminary data suggested that it was a Category 4
tornado on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which measures tornado strength on
a scale of 0 to 5. A definitive assessment will not be available until
Tuesday, she said.
Moore was the scene of another huge tornado, in May 1999, in which winds reached record speeds of 302 m.p.h.
Television on Monday showed destruction spread over a vast area, with
blocks upon blocks of homes and businesses destroyed. Residents, some
partly clothed and apparently caught by surprise, were shown picking
through rubble. Several structures were on fire, and cars had been
tossed around, flipped over and stacked on top of each other.
Kelcy Trowbridge, her husband and their three young children piled into
their neighbor’s cellar just outside of Moore and huddled together for
about five minutes, wrapped under a blanket as the tornado screamed
above them, debris smashing against the cellar door.
They emerged to find their home flattened and the family car resting
upside down a few houses away. Ms. Trowbridge’s husband rushed toward
what was left of their home and began sifting through the debris, then
stopped, and told her to call the police.
He had found the body of a little girl, about 2 or 3 years old, Ms. Trowbridge said.
“He knew she was already gone,” Ms. Trowbridge said. “When the police got there, he just bawled.”
She said: “My neighborhood is gone. It’s flattened. Demolished. The
street is gone. The next block over, it’s in pieces.”
Sarah Johnson was forced to rush from her home in Moore to the hospital
as the storm raged when her 4-year-old daughter, Shellbie, suffered an
asthma attack. With hail raining down, she put a hard hat on her
daughter as she raced into the emergency room and hunkered down.
“We knew it was coming — all the nurses were down on the ground so we
got down on the ground,” Ms. Johnson said, from the Journey Church in
nearby Norman, where she had sought shelter.
At the hospital, she said, she shoved her daughter next to the wall and
threw a mattress on top of her. After the storm passed, she said there
was debris and medical equipment scattered around. She said she and her
daughter were safe, but she had yet to find her husband.
The storm system continued to churn through the region on Monday
afternoon, and forecasters warned that new tornadoes could form.
An earlier storm system also spawned several tornadoes across Oklahoma on Sunday. Several deaths were reported.
Russell Schneider, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said the risk
of tornadoes throughout the region remained high going into Tuesday.
Some parts of Moore emerged seeming untouched by the tornado. Bea
Carruth, who lives about 20 blocks from where the storm struck, said her
home and others in her neighborhood appeared to be fine.
Ms. Carruth had ridden out the tornado as she usually does, at her son’s
house nearby, the hail pounding away on the cellar where they had taken
shelter. Tornadoes have long been a part of life in Moore, she said.
In 1999, the last time a storm this size struck, Ms. Carruth again was
lucky and the home she lived in then was spared. She ended up buying an
empty plot of land where a house destroyed by that tornado once stood.
Her house now sits on that plot.
“This is just awful,” she said. “It all just breaks my heart.”
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