Tornadoes that ripped through Oklahoma Tuesday afternoon left eight people dead and 14 seriously injured in Lone Grove, about 100 miles south of Oklahoma City, but damage in Edmond, which abuts Oklahoma City’s north side, was not as bad as it could have been.
Former Emporia City Manager Steve Commons, now assistant city manager in Edmond, said that a few homes were destroyed and some were heavily damaged.
“It has been blown out of proportion, the impact on Edmond,” Commons said of news reports about the storms.
“We did have damage and we had six homes that I know of that were destroyed. The nice thing is, there’s not an injury we’re aware of in the community.”
The twisters finished in the Edmond area around 5 p.m.
“We had heavy rains and stuff,’ he said of the aftermath. “Southern Oklahoma had basically killer tornadoes. For us, it was over by dark.”
He said damages primarily were confined to the north edge of Edmond’s city limits, in the area of Broadway and Waterloo streets.
“It was mainly in the Oak Tree area, and that has a famous golf course there,” Commons said. “There were areas around Edmond that had heavier damage that literally are just across the street from our city limits.”
Commons’ wife, Pam, who teaches at Cross Timbers School, was closer to the tornado than her husband wanted her to be.
“They basically locked down about 2:30 and they didn’t come out of their shelter ’til 4:30 or 5, because if you follow the storm yesterday, we had a cell come through about every 30 minutes and it never changed track,” Commons said. “The public schools couldn’t release the kids because there wasn’t enough time to get them out and away from the building, or home, before the next cell came through.”
Pam Commons’ last student left the school about 6 o’clock, he said.
Commons was in a meeting downtown with an architect when the sirens sounded.
“We looked at each other and I said, ‘I’m from Kansas and I’m used to these kinds of things. Do you want to keep meeting?’” Commons recounted the conversation. “He said, ‘I’m from Oklahoma and we do the same thing.’”
The men did turn on a plasma TV set in the architect’s office so they could keep an eye on the storm, in case they too needed to take cover. After the meeting, Commons left to tour Edmond with other city officials and assess damage.
Commons noted that Oklahoma tornadoes are different from Kansas tornadoes, primarily because the weather in Oklahoma tends to stay warmer, whereas in Kansas the threat of tornadoes diminishes as temperatures drop in the evening.
“We’ve had sirens go off at 2 o’clock in the morning,” Commons said.
The Associated Press reported that an Edmond body shop and the vehicles inside it sustained extensive damages.
“It’s just surreal,” shop manager Michael Jerry told an AP reporter. “You just don’t believe it. Especially knowing you were there minutes before. The steel girders are in a ball.”
In Lone Grove, the hardest-hit community, emergency crews searched damaged homes and businesses today to find victims of the cluster of tornadoes that touched down, according to a report from The Associated Press.
Dave Smith, a paramedic who helped in the first response to the emergency, said that the most-severe damage primarily was confined to two mobile home parks that were “pretty much wiped out.”
“I transported people with puncture wounds and abdominal injuries,” he said.
The National Guard was en route to Lone Grove to help local authorities, the AP reported.
Unconfirmed reports indicated that the death toll might push higher, but the interim chief investigator for the Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s office said this morning that seven people from Lone Grove had died, as had a truck driver from Jones, Okla., who was passing through the area when the tornado struck.
Many of the town’s residents were able to take cover before the tornadoes hit.
“We were very fortunate,” said Joe Hornback, 42. “We went into the only cellar on our block. There were 30 of us in a 6 by 6 underground cellar.”
The AP reported that Hornback noticed a calm before the tornado struck.
“Then you just heard the wind blow, just like you turned the light switch on.”
Another Lone Hart resident, Lana Hartman, told the AP she rode out the storm with seven other people in a small clothes closet in the rental house she had moved into the day before.
“We were all in the closet,” Hartman said. “The suction was so unreal.”
The tornado blew off part of the house’s roof and lifted one of her daughters into the air. Everyone grabbed the girl, the AP reported.
“I was in shock. I think I still am,” Hartman said. “We’re alive. That’s all that matters.”
Rescuers found one woman injured, but still alive, under an overturned mobile home.
Oklahoma Gas and Electric reported about 6,500 customers without power throughout the state, with the majority of those in southern Oklahoma.
A twister also touched down in Oklahoma City, where homes and businesses were damaged, but only three minor injuries were reported.
One wall of a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant collapsed and windows were blown out before the tornado moved on to a complex of two-story apartments, where the storm blew off a large section of roof, caved in a wall, and knocked a gaping hole in another wall. Parked cars smashed into each other in a lot adjacent to the apartment.
More storms were expected today as the storm moved on into Mississippi, northcentral Louisiana, southeast Arkansas and parts of Missouri and Tennessee. Tornado watches were issued this morning for those areas.
jodiwayjack (anonymous) says...
We are also former emporians living in Lone Grove Oklahoma. My father in law is former fire chief Jim Woydziak, and my husband is former volunteer fire fighter Jason Woydziak. Jason is currently on the Ardmore Oklahoma Fire Department, and an EMT working for Southern Oklahoma Ambulance Service. The devastation here is beyond belief, but our family is very lucky. Jason responded to the Lone Grove Fire Department a 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday evening. We would like to thank all of our friends and family in the Emporia area for their calls and good wishes. Please keep the families not so fortunate in your prayers.
February 11, 2009 at 6:32 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )