Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press
A child was pulled from the rubble of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., on Monday. More Photos »
Teachers carried children away from Briarwood
Elementary school after a tornado destroyed the school in south Oklahoma
City on Monday. More Photos »
As the injured began flooding into hospitals, the authorities said many
people remained trapped, even as rescue workers were struggling 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, 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, and on Monday evening rescue workers were
still struggling to tear through rubble 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.”
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,
and a few times a year, in a well-worn ritual, she goes into her son’s
cellar when the sirens go off.
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.”
Culled from New York Times
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