After a few long days in tornado land, I spent Tuesday with the family and had a marvelous time. (They spent last week with her parents and sister in AR and had already planned on spending this week in Iowa with her brother, so she’s well taken care of). I spent some time on Wednesday and Thursday morning pretending that I have a real job and returned to tornadoland Thursday.
Thursday was pretty quiet. I answered all the computer issues that arose while I was gone and reached out to a couple of people that needed some follow up support. A friend from my ward was on one of the work crews and planned to camp overnight. He ended up coming to the hotel with me and as we were headed to bed he called his wife who said, “don’t worry we’re all in the storm shelter and everything is fine, so go to sleep.” We didn’t. Broken Arrow (where we live) had a small tornado touch down about 2 miles from my house. I was happy that family was somewhere else.
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A few of the models were amazing
workers, a few of them worked
like models. |
Since Thursday was kind of quiet, I came prepared to go out and help with the recovery on Friday, which turned out to be a good idea. As soon as my friend and I arrived at the church the Elder in charge said “I’ve got 15 models here. What am I supposed to do with 15 models!?” We ended up taking them to a couple of sites to clear out debris and trees. (One of the men showed up in tennis shoes and shorts and during the intro was asked quite sarcastically if he knew he was entering a disaster area. We refrained from laughing...that gentleman made it about an hour and a half.) I was actually quite impressed that they were willing to step out of their comfort zone and help out. In the end we were quite productive and had a good, but tiring day.
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| You can see that some of the got dirtier than others, but we did some work! |
When we returned, I spoke with the people in charge and they felt that another two or three weeks would probably be sufficient with all the groups that were working…that was the story until the evening.
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| A hot and tired Dan |
They’d announced the probability of strong storms Friday evening, so everyone had an ear out. I was quite exhausted and happy to take a shower and crawl into bed. I turned the TV back on to check the weather and decided that sleeping was out. We weren’t under a warning yet, but much of the area to the east was. I went outside and joined many other amateur storm watchers pondering the horizon. I wandered around a bit looking for a storm shelter, but didn’t find one. As I got more updates, I decided that shorts and flip-flops weren’t adequate for what was headed my way…back into long pants, boots, and a jacket. I tucked my laptop under the car seat (hoping to find it later), filled my pockets with food, water, gloves, etc., and started looking for a better place to stay than the second floor of a two story hotel.
As the rain started I found a hotel room downstairs sheltered by much of the building where people were gathering (most of them knew each other but they were happy to let me join in). We knew there’d been a large tornado about 30 miles west in El Reno.
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This picture and the map of the tornados below
came from the National Weather Service |
[Pause for long interruption from the narrative: At first they thought it was an EF3, but as they studied the info gathered by storm watchers and damage they determined that it was an EF5 with winds as high as 295mph and as wide as 2.6 miles. That made it the widest tornado ever recorded and the second fastest (the fastest one hit Moore, OK in 1999 – yes the same Moore that was hit last week – and it had wind speeds of 318mph). The National Weather Service did clarify that that was the width of the tornado itself not the area of wind damage that was significant outside of the tornados because we had straight-line winds of 90mph following the tornado. It was an insane tornado. They reported it increased in size from one mile to 2.6 miles in about 30 seconds. It also changed directions drastically. It’s fickleness is what cost the life of three professional storm chasers…I greatly appreciate real storm chasers as they make life much safer for those in the possible storm path. Amateur storm chasers are generally stupid. Back to the narrative…]
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I've heard that greenish clouds indicate bad storms...these did!
(As I was out taking the picture my father called and said "I assume that because I answered, I survived the yesterdays storms in Broken Arrow." I told them that that was the easy part. The hard part would be surviving the storms in OKC tonight. He gave me updates from his side as I hunkered down with new friends on my side.) |
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As we were sitting in the hotel, the TV showed us this map
with a likely tornado right on top of the hotel |
So we knew of a large tornado to the west and kept hearing about a rain-wrapped tornado heading our way. (Most tornados form on the edge of storms, where fronts meet. Thus you can get clear pictures and see where they are headed. This tornado was preceded by rain, a lot of rain. Between the rain and the clouds, it looked like night outside and it was still at least an hour before sunset. This was likely a tender mercy, had it been a normal tornado I’d have waited on the balcony to see it, stupid storm watcher as I am. As it was you could see nothing so hunkering down was what I did). Somehow we kept power ahead of the storm and watched as they predicted the path of the tornado hitting us and even showed the rotation illustrations right on top of our hotel. All we could see was buckets of rain flowing almost sideways. The tornado path map below shows that the tornado was headed almost straight at us, but picked up before it arrived (initial estimates put around an EF1 that was on the ground for 10 miles).
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In the aftermath, I found this map that showed that
the tornado closest to us likely picked up a couple
of miles from the hotel. So our damage was just wind. |
The hotel lost a lot of shingles and had some other surface damage, but otherwise seemed to survive. In the end we seemed okay and though other storms were forming, we seemed to be out of their path. I returned to my room to watch the storm. Soon thereafter we lost power and having not been wise my phone was almost dead too. At that moment the sirens went off again. I checked my phone quickly and decided it was safe enough to stay put, but hunker down. I grabbed a pillow and laid down in the bathtub in a boots and with my supplies. As noted earlier, it was a long day and I was exhausted, I quickly fell asleep. After about an hour and a half I woke up, walked out a cramp, and checked to see if the world still existed.
Rain was still pouring down but otherwise calm. (It rained hard from about 6pm to 5am,. By the morning the pool that had had about a foot in the deep end had a foot and a half in the shallow end, while some water did run in, a lot of that came from straight from the sky.) I ran to the car and grabbed my laptop so I could plug my phone into it and recharge my phone. Fortunately, most of the shingles seemed to have missed the car (I’d had a dream while sleeping in the tub that the car had been all scratched up by shingles). My laptop was almost dead too, but I was able to charge my phone enough to make sure that I wasn’t in a tornado warning (I was not, just severe thunderstorm warning). I was safe, so I propped open my hotel room door with a shoe (it was very humid and stifling inside) and went to sleep for the night. (For a good overview of the night look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_26%E2%80%9331,_2013_tornado_outbreak)
I awoke to no power and checked out and headed back to the command center at the church. There were many stories from that night but here’s one of them:
Elder Rasband (President of the Presidents of the Seventy of the LDS Church) was on one of the last flights to come in before the storm. The bishop whose ward was most affected by the May 20th storm and Elder Southward (our new area authority) picked him up. They’d planned on meeting a sister and her family in Moore, but as they headed that direction the storm shifted to follow them. They called her and met up and continued driving south and the storm continued to follow them. The sister called her father and asked if she should hunker down. He told her to “Follow the Priesthood!” She did and they eventually got away from the torrential rain, but they didn’t make it to their hotel until after midnight.
Even after a short, stressful night Elder Rasband made it to church in the morning to meet with the missionaries. He, Elder Southward, and OK Representative to Congress Cole addressed them that morning. Elder Rasband took questions from the missionaries. We were trying to determine the damage from the night before but the parts that I did hear were great.
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| Congressman Cole addressing the missionaries with Elders Rasband and Southward on the stand in the background |
After the meeting Elder Rasband spoke with a single sister of ten that was at the school when it was hit dead on and lost her home. (She was a kindergarten teacher’s assistant. The storm came and she battled searching for her kids at the school or staying in the classroom. Every time that she thought about leaving she felt very strongly that she should stay put. She was instrumental in saving those children as a car crashed through the classroom. Her home was destroyed, but all of her children (eight were in the storm's path) were protected. She was the sister that followed them around the night before…you can imagine that she was a little overwhelmed with the storms). I was greatly impressed as Elder Rasband spent about three hours with her and her family.
The rest of Saturday we worked at assessing the damage and sending out teams to fulfill work orders. As things calmed down at the command center I was sent to put up signs that we had printed. So I took some sisters who knew the area and we drove around town putting up signs. I checked out of my hotel that had no power Saturday morning and started checking into another when I got to the church…I was interrupted. By time I got back to looking for a hotel at 5pm everything within an hour of OKC was full. I checked into a place a little over an hour away, because I was peopled out and preferred to drive over staying with a member. (After I checked in they told me I could stay at the church, but it was after the cancelation deadline, so I jumped in the car and listen to a good story on the way to the hotel and General Conference on the way back to 7am church in the morning.)
Sunday my stake was coming down to serve. We had Sacrament Meeting at 7:30am (everyone was told that it was 7, but Elder Rasband was told 7:30…we started when he arrived). There Elder Rasband noted that he is very impressed that no one had asked why bad things happen, but that people have been focused on healing and recovery. He also added that he ran into President Monson at President Erying’s birthday celebration the day before coming out. He said “President, I’m headed to Oklahoma where they’ve had some horrible tornados.” President Monson responded and said I know, tell them three things: first, I love them; second, I’m praying for them, and third, thank all the volunteers.
We rushed to get crews out of the church by 9am when the three wards were meeting for their sacrament meeting. I talked with more people and had hoped to get out and work with my ward, but as I was heading out a member called and pointed out that the signs we put out had the wrong phone number (the printer switched the 4 and 9). Crud! The sisters that went with me weren’t around so I grabbed some volunteers and drove around again correcting the signs with white duct tape and a Sharpie…I think I got all of them I put out, but we did send some with the missionaries. Oh well.
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I should do better with before and after pictures.
I made this poor doctor and his wife slave pretty
hard to get this tree off a roof and to the curb
but they worked hard and were amazing!
(Although, I don't think they returned Tuesday)
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We knew Monday would be quiet at the command center, so we did some research to find areas that were affected Friday (there were so many storms and so much straight wind throughout OKC and
surrounding area that we could no longer knew where we needed to focus canvassing and advertising. We found some areas and I started putting out more signs when lightning struck my brain and I realized that we needed signs by the people not necessarily by the damage. So we put up signs by Walmart, Target, and Lowes. We only had a couple of teams Monday and no chainsaw operators (most of the damage from the last storm was tree/roof damage, fortunately the EF5 hit in the country not the city). So I went out and cut a tree off someone’s roof as a couple from North Dakota removed the limbs to the curb.
Another exciting note for the day, was that as I was checking out a chainsaw a guy named Jimmie checked out one too. He asked me how he could learn more about he the church. He noted that he'd worked a lot with Mormon Helping Hands over the past couple weeks and even had his picture posted on the Church's newsroom site. His wife is a member, but he hasn't been interested, but has been so welcomed during his service that he wants to learn more. He also noted that with his picture online and in the paper wearing a yellow Mormon Helping Hands shirt, people have asked him if he was a member...he added. "Everyone thinks I'm a Mormon, so I should probably learn more about it." I found out where he lives and happen to know the sisters there quite well. I texted them and they set up a time to meet with him the following day. You never can tell the blessings of service.
I debated staying until Tuesday morning, but decided to come home Monday night. I took Tuesday to catch up a little at the house, but mostly get some rest (although I did run my slowest 5k time in about a year…I’m kind of sore). Tomorrow back to my real job. Thursday night my family comes home. They’ve had a great time with family in AR and IA and Camden has been too entertained to talk with me during the day, but at bed time he asks me to sing either “I’m So Glad When Daddy Comes Home” or “Bring Him Home” almost every night. We plan on going back out this weekend as a family. Miranda may not be excited, but is very supportive of the plan and the boys love hotels (I’m sure I’ll only be somewhat focused.) We’re all glad we have a couple of family trips planned later in the June and July.
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| FAITH, |
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| HOPE, |
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And CHARITY
All exist here even in the storm |
Now for my observations from the week.
1. We don’t have to be perfect, just know the direction and start working. I’ve seen flaws in myself and others in how we’ve responded, but overall everyone has gone great work and amazing things are happening.
2. I had some very busy weeks leading up to the tornado and I sat down the morning of the tornado to plan and saw that I had very few significant things scheduled the next couple of weeks; I thought that I needed to get on the ball with my planning. I know now that it was a tender mercy of the Lord and that it has allowed me to serve in OKC without worrying too much about everything else. (Although I can’t say that I haven’t dropped a ball or two).
3. When you know a storm is coming charge your electronic devices. It’ll make life a lot easier.
4. Make sure you proof read…it can save you a lot of time and energy.
5. The Lord and his servants care about The Church and the individual. Elder Rasband’s actions reminded me of that.
And now for a moment of levity:
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The more impressive thing than the hopeful message on the
garage door, was that within about 9 days from the storm
this man had re-roof, re-sided, and installed windows
on his daughters home here. |
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| Dan gets to play with a big chainsaw |
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| I was entertained |
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| Yard of the Month! I love it. |
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Although not the saddest part of the whole thing,
it is sad that the storm destroyed a disc golf
course before I could even play there. |
By the way I looked up the word tornado as I've seen its plural as tornados and tornadoes. Both are accurate according to the dictionary. I chose tornados because I am against the gratuitous use of the letter 'e'
