The Morning After

I’m not as afraid of tornadoes as I respect them. Modern meteorology has advanced to the point where local forecasters can typically predict the weather patterns that form tornadoes days in advance. Still, knowing one is coming and being able to do something about it are two different things. Despite the fact that meteorologists can tell us the speed and direction in which these forces of nature are traveling, the best defense we have against them involves climbing into holes in the ground and waiting for them to pass.

Some of those holes are nicer than others. In the basement of my building is a very nice gym, which also happens to be our designated meeting place when tornado sirens go off. On Monday, they did, and that’s I and a couple hundred of my co-workers went — all of us standing around, watching the live television feed of 200+ mile per hour winds destroying people’s homes and lives.

For most of us, tornadoes are like a twisted (pardon the pun) version of the lottery. The news shows us moving satellite imagery and live video of the destruction in progress as we hide away in our safe spots, cross our fingers, and hope that when we emerge we’ll find that it wasn’t our family or friends that were affected. Thank goodness, usually it’s not.

On May 3rd, 1999, a tornado of unprecedented mass tore across Moore, Oklahoma. At the time, the ranking of F5 (the highest rating we then gave to tornadoes) was deemed not strong enough. All the urban legends surrounding tornadoes came true that day. Grass was ripped out of the ground. Pieces of lumber became missiles, penetrating trees and houses. People seeking shelter under bridges and overpasses were pulled out by the wind and thrown mercilessly.

Both my mom and grandma lived in Midwest City in a neighborhood that took a direct hit by the May 3rd tornado. Somehow both of their houses were spared; hundreds of others in their neighborhood weren’t. On May 4th, I took this picture of a house literally 10 hours down the block from my mom’s.

All the houses had been reduced to piles. I’ve never been inside a war zone and never hope to be in one, but I am sure this is what it must be like. We saw toilets in the street, cars in trees and houses, and unidentifiable “stuff” everywhere — just bits of paper and plastic and wood that were all parts of something somewhere the day before.

The devastation left behind the May 3rd tornado was the worst I had ever seen.

Here was yesterday’s headline:

Following an almost identical path, a massive tornado once again ripped across the state. Tornadoes are made of wind, and as such tend to build up power and speed in wide open spaces and die down in urban areas. Not this one. Not this time. Not again.

Current estimates are that the tornado was between 1 and 2 miles wide and was on the ground for 17 miles.

(AP Photo)

Early reports of an elementary school taking a direct hit proved true, and one of the first reports of casualties to make the news were of a group of elementary students who were trapped in a school basement and drowned. It’s an absolutely horrific story that feeds on our (as parents) worst fear of sending your kids to school and not having them come home. Absolutely, absolutely awful.

The past 48 hours have been an emotional roller coaster, even though I was not directly affected by the tornado (all my friends and family are fine). Facebook has been flooded with pictures of piles of rubble that used to be homes. Some of the pictures came from the news, and some of them came from people on my Facebook friends list who used to live in them. Some of the stories have been heartbreaking. Obviously any story involving someone’s death is terrible, but also as a collector of “things” the idea of coming home and finding all of your things gone seems unthinkable. Coming home and not finding your house there seems even more unthinkable.

Here’s a picture one of my friends posted on Facebook of her house.

So now, the cleanup and the healing begins. Sadly we’ve had some practice in that department here in Oklahoma. According to the 6am news this morning, some volunteers are being turned away because there are so many of them. There’s a donation center set up on every corner. People are buying water and Gatorade and work gloves by the case and donating them. Phone lines at local radio stations have been clogged for days by people asking how and where they can help. Kevin Durant from the Oklahoma City Thunder donated a million dollars to the relief fund. This was matched by the Thunder organization, which has been matched by countless local organizations.

Sometimes we Okies take others’ generosity for granted. Nobody is taking anything for granted this week.

Within the next day or two the national news will shift back to sports headlines and torrid celebrity scandals while people here continue to dig out both figuratively and literally. My Twitter and Facebook feeds have already begun to re-clog themselves with cupcake recipes and pictures of cats.

Once again we’ll move on, and once again, we will never forget.