Tornadoes Devastate OK Leveling Neighborhoods and at Least One Occupied School

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/20/us/severe-weather/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

This is a natural disaster of historic proportions.

Heartbreaking. Hoping all those school kids are alright.

What unbelievably bad luck. Moore was devastated by another F5 tornado in 1999 (which produced the highest wind speeds in recorded history, 303 mph). It would be like if the same spot on the coast got a cat 5 hurricane twice in 14 years.

Those people only have minutes, if that, to get to safety. If it were a hurricane, none of those kids would even be in school today. They would have known it was heading their way days ago.

http://www.tornadoalleylive.com/subindex/weather/maps

I was watching it live from the start on this site..

Lurch wrote:http://www.tornadoalleylive.com/subindex/weather/maps

I was watching it live from the start on this site..

Thanks
Found this in the chat room
ndigoGitana
Missing kids found ALIVE in school's "safe room

All kids at one of the schools are alive and accounted for.

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/cvplive/cvpstream3.html

So far I have been unable to make contact with any of my relatives that are in the area. Needless to say I am really concerned. I have an uncle and brother that lives in Moore.

Terrible news coming from the other school though. Many children believe trapped and dead.

Ghost, I hope your family and friends are alright and you hear from them soon. When we had the tornadoes up here 2 years ago, we did not even have cell phone service for several days.

I was curious about how close the path of the 1999 Moore tornado was to this one. I googled up that info and made this little map for us to see.

The path of the 99 tornado is roughly between the red lines (it first touched down where those lines begin).
And the path of the one today is between the blue lines. But that's based on the one today also being a mile wide and now CNN is reporting the width as 2 miles which would extend it's path and make it even closer to the earlier one.
The school which was destroyed in today's tornado is located where the "A" balloon is on the map.

Ghost_Rider1 wrote:So far I have been unable to make contact with any of my relatives that are in the area. Needless to say I am really concerned. I have an uncle and brother that lives in Moore.

If you have your relatives' addresses you can map that with google, ghost, and then see how close it is to the path on my map.

This is a more accurate map than the first one, ghost. Today's tornado path is between the blue lines.

Bob wrote:This is a more accurate map than the first one, ghost. Today's tornado path is between the blue lines.

Thanks Bob, just got a message from my brother and he and his family and my uncle and his are all OK. He said service is spotty at best and that he has been trying to reach me since shorty after the tornadoes hit. I would imagine that all the circuits are overloaded about now. If you look at the map you posted, find Broad Moore, he lives just NW of there close to I-35.

As for the 99 tornado, I do not believe that it stayed on the ground for 40 minutes like this one did.

That's great, Ghost.

Nekochan wrote:That's great, Ghost.

Thanks Neko. I just saw a report that is saying so far 51 have been killed.

Glad all your people are ok!!!! Mr Ghost. Let us know if we can help. I think there is going to be a large death toll when it is all sorted out. What a tragic event.

So glad to hear that, ghost.

Man that was a close call. Broad Moore is "A" on the map. And the Plaza Towers Elementary school is "B". If you look at the scale of miles in the left corner of the map you can see how close he was to the path.

Did your brother see the tornado passing to the north of him (was he home at the time)?

This is really turning into a tragedy of horrible proportions. One local tv reporter just told CNN there could be dozens of children killed in the school.
CNN on the internet is confirming seven already.

There are more reports of this tornado being two miles wide. That's almost unheard of.
Here's a map of Pensacola with a 2 mile indicator in the lower left corner.
Just take that width and picture how much of Pensacola would be impacted by a two mile wide twister which is at least F4 and maybe F5 in intensity.

Bob wrote:So glad to hear that, ghost.

Man that was a close call. Broad Moore is "A" on the map. And the Plaza Towers Elementary school is "B". If you look at the scale of miles in the left corner of the map you can see how close he was to the path.

Did your brother see the tornado passing to the north of him (was he home at the time)?

This is really turning into a tragedy of horrible proportions. One local tv reporter just told CNN there could be dozens of children killed in the school.
CNN on the internet is confirming seven already.

He lives on Southern Hills Dr which is east of I-35 and the school is west of the interstate. The school is northwest of my brothers house.

Glad your family is ok ghost.


This is heartbreaking.

I hate tornados.

Chrissy wrote:Glad your family is ok ghost.


This is heartbreaking.

I hate tornados.

Me too. At least with hurricanes you get somewhat of an advanced notification, unlike tornadoes.

Just received a FB post from my brother and I cannot substantiate this, but he said they are hearing reports of debris from the Moore tornadoes has been found in Branson MO, 250 miles away.


Thanks everyone for the well wishes, they are appreciated.