Midwest tornadoes
 

Prayers to all the families over there. Lots of children unaccounted for. The one that hit grandbury last week was in my cousins back yard. He watched it from his house. Moore Oklahoma is destroyed. Say a prayer for them.

I was fortunate to have my aunt, uncle and cousins spared damage and injury today. Today's tornado missed my aunt and uncle's home by 1 block...They had the same luck 5/3/99.

Pray for those who haven't been so fortunate.

Also Oklahoma City and area is also bad.. Prayers to All.

This bad boy was over my sister neighbor in edmond ok yesterday afternoon about 345pm. Thank god it didn't touch down!!! They were in there underground shelter

sent from my Galaxy NOTE II

Man that is wicked

Couple dozen children unaccounted for at the school. So sad for those who lost their children. Watching the news breaks my heart.

They are now reporting at least 2 dozen children have been killed at one school...hurts to type this. Prayers for the families.

That's nuts. By the looks of that windshield they got wayyy too close for me. It's now saying those kids drowned in the school. Devastating ...

That's freaking horrible! At least if my child is with me I can try and protect them. Not to say the school didn't do what it could, but as a parent the helpless feeling of knowing your not by your child's side must be torture! Prayers going out tonight.

Exactly my thoughts. The helpless feeling has to be torture.

Think about that everyday I drop my kids at daycare

Makes me sick with them knowing 16 minutes ahead of the twister. Why don't they hav built in shelters in these schools. Prayers for everyone involved

Time lapse video from chopper http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/51945473#51945473

Wow that's gut wrenching

Death toll up to 51 now. When you look at the damage it scary to think about the people that are under that rubble.

I grew up around these things, seen many destroyed towns over time. This one missed my mothers by a few miles. Love going back but don't miss those twisters.

My thoughts and prayers are with all affected .. Hurricanes suck pretty bad but at least we can follow them all the way from the Atlantic .. Tornados scare the hell out of me .. So sad

I was born in Moore, mom grew up there, aunt and grandparents still there. 1999 went just north of their house, this one just south - Crazy!!!! They are blessed their house is still standing and they survived both of these massive twisters.

The school with the unaccounted children is where my mom went when she was little, weird seeing all that - I cringe thinking of how that has to feel, I'm not good at empathizing, but these situations give me some serious knots in my stomach. I called my grandparents as soon as I found out and obviously the phones were down and towers jammed up - had to wait to see if they were still around :/

God bless all of the families with lost kin...

I remember 1999 well. It was the first week of May (a week before Mother's Day). My wife and kids were helping clean up from a family reunion we attended in Buck Thomas Park the day before. We watched that thing for 30 minutes before it grounded. When it hit you could see stuff tumbling sky-high. Damndest noise I've ever heard. We all knelt right there and asked the Lord to please spare 'em. Luckily, the loss of life was not as bad as we thought. It might not have been the deadliest tornado on record, but, it is still regarded as the costliest....$1 billion damage in 45 minutes. It was measured as an EF-5 with winds in excess of 300 mph. Hard for me to even fathom something with 2 1/2 times the power of Hurricane Katrina.

God Speed to everyone in the path of today's storm.

Horrible, tragic event. This may be a stupid question, but why is it that area of the country that only has these massive twisters? I don't understand.

I'm not certain, but the air drawn from the north is much cooler an dryer, and the air from the south is much warmer and moist than anywhere else the 3 meet. Two extremes create the big boys

It's amazing with all that wide open nothingness in that area these twisters seem to always find a populated area!

This is the reason. My GF Laura Buchtel explained it explained it this AM on 870 AM.

What I find hard to believe is that storm shelters aren't mandatory in that part of Ok. In fact from what I was told by a individual who moved from Lafayette to Ok city he told me he looked at over 100 homes and only 2 had shelters.

They call it "Tornado Alley".

It's the people's responsibility to take the proper precautions, make it mandatory and guess who will pay for all of the ones that won't sacrifice a little (or haven't already) to do so, and the ones that can't due to a legitimate situation.

Move somewhere else is the way it is and the way it should be, that's the beauty of having open borders amongst the states of this great country we call home. Don't like gay marriage? Move. Scared of earthquakes and can't make proper preparations? Move. Live in a bowl and can't evacuate before the fully washer comes through? Move.

Mandatory for homes? I don't support it. Facilitating safe evacuation and adequate alerts for approaching cells at schools and such, I absolutely support it.

Just saw photos of the bowling alley. A big pile of twisted up steel girders and beams. Metal buildings didn't fare too well, but on the other hand neither did 'stick frame' construction. If I lived in that part of the country, I think I would buy about 5 of those steel shipping containers and drag about 10' of dirt over the top

Gooch I am against most government intrusion into our lives but if this can save lives why not make at the very least public shelters available? I was up there last year right before the major tornado out break and the big news at the time was all about the politicians fighting against public storm shelters. I was also told the reason they don't have more shelters is because of taxes. Oh and by the way I am 100% with you that we should take care of ourselves. I try to look at the weather before I travel to that part of the country as I don't want to get caught in a tornado. I have been threw Moore three times in the last year and I am heartbroken for those good people.

The Sooner State has got to have the worst weather in the world....although my wife won't agree. She maintains at least they don't have hurricanes. :eek: It's 100+ degrees and bone dry there in the summer, "black ice" in the winter and tornadoes in the spring/early summer. I'll take the 'canes.

Like...

"But, it's a different kind of heat..." is what I hear all the time from the locals. Yeah, it's unreal up there!!:cry:

When somebody says "but, it's a different kind of heat"...I doubt they're referring to Oklahoma. Arizona? Maybe. Oklahoma's humidity in the summer is just as thick as ours with a temp much higher. And then, I spent Christmas Day up there several years ago...12 noon...not a cloud in the sky and the temp hadn't even reached "zero". :eek:

You may be right about the worst weather. Why do people live there?

I have a question? Please don't take it the wrong way.
While the area had a tornado Sat / sun and the forecasters told the area in Oklahoma that on that day there WAS going to be severe weather w/ a Good chance of very large hail and tornadoes. WHY were schools open??? The schools Don't have storm shelters???

Not much thug life

Good Question, nothing was safe around there though.


Probably not a better reason than that.

I heard on the Radio this AM that many of the houses in that area don't have basement/storm shelters because the soil is very shallow and it's basically built on bedrock. In order to make ones own storm shelter you would have to blast through the bed rock and it very expensive.

Typically, schools are the safest places to be as far as sturdy construction. Some schools there have storm shelters. My elementary school had one that was also our cafeteria.

If they cancelled school every time a storm system was forecast they'd never finish the spring semester.

Besides that, most all structures don't have a cellar or shelter.

Corey is correct, Bob...many schools have storm shelters but not all. IMO, it should be part of the Oklahoma state building code that all schools, hospitals, nursing homes and such in the "Alley" must have some type of shelter that is tornado-proof. No matter the construction of the building itself....it cannot withstand 300 mph twistin' winds. Every home in my in-laws neighborhood had 'em. I don't think homes should be mandatory, tho.

As far as schools being open....apparently, they are not like the schools here in Washington Parish. They'll shut down here for 3 days at the mere mention of a snow flake. I remember my wife saying that, when she was in high school, they had like 15 "weather" days set aside per year. But, school was usually out during tornado season. Plenty crappy weather to go around up there, tho.

I was watching North America the series Sunday night (very cool by the way) and they said on there that the Rocky Mountains cause the North Air to mix with South Gulf air creating these horrible storms as they mix and move east together through the midwest.

Prayers for all up there.