This is the nine year anniversary of the May 3, 1999 F5 tornado that tore through the Oklahoma City area. KOCO (channel 5 om OKC) has unedited videos of the weather coverage from that afternoon/evening. See http://www.koco.com/may3/index.html. I watched several of them this afternoon. That was one wild day, let me tell you.
I watched the news for hours. Tornado after tornado formed. I was not in the path of the storm, as it turned out (but you never know). Still, I knew people who were looking right down the barrel. I was scared to death. I spent much of the evening IM'ing husband (before he was even a boyfriend) giving him updates (he was not in town). I recall telling him that, "I've never seen anything like this and you haven't either!"
After the tornadoes passed, the smell of natural gas lingered for days. Within minutes, it began raining down debris. My mother was several miles away from where the tornadoes clipped Tinker Air Force Base and lots of ash-like debris fell from the sky. Pictures, fabric, insulation, trash.
The aerial photos showed where the tornado just swept through whole neighborhoods.
It amazes me that more people weren't killed (although 48 souls died).
As I said, quite scary.
photos from NOAA
3 comments:
Tornadoes are truly awe-inspiring. We've had some tornado warnings, but never had one come close. I hope one never does.
Wow, that is scary. So glad it missed you. We get tornado warnings here all the time - in fact there is a siren that sounds every Wednesday at noon to make sure the sirens work.
In Oklahoma City, they check the tornado sirems at noon on Saturday. While we were checking out the new house last weekend, the sirens came on. OMG! They were so loud I thought my eardrums would explode. They must have the sirens on that section of land, or something. I always worried that I wouldn't hear the sirens if it was raining but I don't think that is a concern at the new house.
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