Much of Moore, Oklahoma, a southern suburb of Oklahoma City, has been flattened by what is preliminarily being called an F4 tornado. Damage is being compared to that of the Joplin, Missouri tornado.

An elementary school has been flattened and the search is on for surviving children. In the news footage I can identify one standing wall with a green chalkboard. You can see an overhead projector screen above the board and another shape that might be an intercom. The classroom itself is gone.

Fourth, fifth, and sixth grade children were evacuated in advance of the storm to a nearby church, and all of those children have been accounted for. The search is on for the kindergarten through third grade students.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2013 06:55PM by summer.

Oh no... My thoughts are with the people who are suffering. I hope they find those kiddos soon.

Now they're saying it was a two-mile wide tornado. Two-miles?!

How awful. Here I am enjoying a lovely, hot sunny Victoria Day holiday.

Feeling grateful.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/05/20/tornado-emergency-large-violent-tornado-south-of-oklahoma-city/?DSkj&hpid=z2

The winds were 200+ mph. Thousands of homes completely destroyed, leaving only the bare concrete pads on which they stood. Horrendous devastation.

Edit: Six fatalities confirmed.

The tornado made a direct hit on an elementary school that was in session. From advanced warnings, children in grades 4-6 were evacuated to a safe location and they are all alive and well. Unfortuantely, chidren in grades one through three were in the school when the tornado hit. The school was destroyed. Now the authorities have said that they are in search and recovery mode and they don't expect to find any survivors. That means 24 children have died there.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2013 07:51PM by saviorself.

I hope they account for the k-3rd grade kids.

I think I just heard that the kids are all accounted for. Only six known deaths, so far.
Just a horrible mess. So much gone and scattered.

OH NO..unthinkable devastation... going to pull out the little bodies that were trapped... 24 third graders, believed to be dead. Hoping the is a miracle!!!!!!!!!!

The CBS evening news has excellent coverage. They already have a reporter on the ground in Moore.

Has anyone blamed the gays yet? Or zoning laws that keep the Mormons from building a temple?

Watched this unfold on live television about 20 minutes away from Moore. Horrific stuff. Please send good thoughts our way.

51 confirmed deaths with the toll rising.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2013 09:14PM by steve benson.

the official toll is about 24, a real tribute to science for predicting and forewarning the storm and its path.

The tornado has been officially reclassified to an F5, the most powerful tornado possible, and sometimes unoffically called, "the finger of God." Winds were in excess of 200 m.p.h. The storm was 1.3 miles at its widest point and was on the ground for 40 minutes.

Whatever the losses, it's miraculous that there were not more.

The NBC Nightly News is reporting that the force of the storm equalled that of the force of the nuclear blast in Hiroshima.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2013 06:47PM by summer.

I don't know, but my best guess is that the older children could be counted on to move quickly and with a firm sense of direction. They might not have had enough time to safely move the younger children.

The one school where all of the children survived had a "safe room." The mayor of Moore explained that the destroyed school was older construction, and without a safe room.

I was wondering that as well. When I lived in Colorado we had a tornado warning. I had to leave work to pick up my daughter from school. They had ALL of the grades lined up in the hallways just in case. I was able to pick her up about 25 mins before it hit. It DESTROYED a neighboring town. Thankfully, it never came that close to her school but I'm sure glad I got her out of there before then. It was really scary. I will never forget the greenish glow of the sky before it hit...very creepy looking and ominous. I guess they just ran out of time....I can't imagine any other explanation since they have more tornados out there than we ever did.

The news said that some parents picked up their kids ahead of time at the elementary school.

I live in the OKC area. A principal at my child's school(not in Moore, but I think she heard it from the grape vine) told me that the teachers had the children RUN to a neighboring church. Not sure if the little ones just didn't have time or were not able to run.

Yeah, that's what I figured. The older kids could be trusted to run to a given destination in a somewhat organized fashion. That would be a lot tougher to pull off with younger children.

I do wonder what it was about the church that made it the safer option.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2013 09:37PM by summer.

I am less than 10 miles from this disaster. I don't have a car to evaluate the scene, as I am just visiting Oklahoma University for some training. We are waiting for victims to start moving into the dorms at the University since the school finished graduation a week ago. Crazy place to live is all I have to say!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2013 09:08PM by orange.