Moore, OK Tornado

[Goodburbon]

I can not fathom why schools in that region are still built above ground, or why people would choose to live there above ground.

Heartbreaking, but inevitable until someone institutes corrective action. Much like New Orleans.

My heart breaks for the families harmed by this.


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[Firehaus]

An f5 carved a path a mile wide, maybe a mile away from my house in Kansas growing up. Looked like a war zone, unbelievable destruction. Why people continue to live in trailer parks in tornado alley is beyond me.

[babirl]

Prayers sent, especially for the kids but a lot of good folks are dead or hurt.

Went through the Wichita Falls/Whiskey Falls monster in 1979... Had friends in Joplin and Huntsville more recently. Hurricanes, floods and earthquakes suck and are much more widespread; however, these super tornadoes are unbelievable for nearly everything in their path.

B2

[theGinsue]

I lived in a trailer (2 in the same park actually..different times) when I was in college after HS. It was all I could afford.

That same trailer park got totally wiped out by a tornado many years back. When I lived here, I knew the risk but had no other options. For most, it's not a matter of choice, but economics.

[Firehaus]

I lived in a trailer (2 in the same park actually..different times) when I was in college after HS. It was all I could afford.

That same trailer park got totally wiped out by a tornado many years back. When I lived here, I knew the risk but had no other options. For most, it's not a matter of choice, but economics.

I had many friends that grew up in them, I never judge.

It's just amazing how you can have houses on either side of a park and the tornado will hit it 9/10 times.

I've had friends posting pics of baseball size hail from the same storm. Not really missing living I Kansas this time of year.

[Ah Pook]

Prayers sent, especially for the kids but a lot of good folks are dead or hurt.

Went through the Wichita Falls/Whiskey Falls monster in 1979... Had friends in Joplin and Huntsville more recently. Hurricanes, floods and earthquakes suck and are much more widespread; however, these super tornadoes are unbelievable for nearly everything in their path.

B2

I helped a friend clean up what was left of his family's house after that one. We drove in at night and the silhouettes along the highway were eerie. I have never seen such destruction. The house was gone but the kitchen table still had a bowl of eggs sitting on it. Dirt in the sealed sugar bowl. The cemetery was the most bizarre. Stones snapped in both directions.

What was the t'shirt? "Wichita Falls, home of the $10 million blow job." I had that shirt for a long time.

[babirl]

DP?

[babirl]

...

What was the t'shirt? "Wichita Falls, home of the $10 million blow job." I had that shirt for a long time.

Think it was $100M BJ at the time...

Not to take away from the on-going OK tragedy, but after the grieving that was the exact spirit of the survivors that got directly hit and a community with the TX-spirit that largely rebuilt in just a few short years.

GOD SPEED and once again prayers sent for OKC/Moore and the others in OK, KS, and TX hit in the past couple of days... Go HUG your family!

Most effective immediate relief will be through Red Cross specifically targeted @ OKC but others need help too... RC can have some high overhead on certain things but are the most responsive with ability to reach out and help immediately. Many volunteer organizations, churches, friends, etc. will be to OKC and KS/TX shortly.

B2

FWIW, It is super weird what you find after a huge tornado of that magnitude in spite of what even Myth Busters say... Literally there is straw through trees, beer cans sucked dry while sealed, complete devastation of a 'cheap house' blown flat and yet one next door had a nightstand remain standing with some precious family pics, one mansion leveled and one spared, etc. Heck, we recovered one aircraft that was jerked out of tie-down chains/pirouetted down 1/4 mile away, was deemed airworthy that's still flying to my knowledge ...

Ah Pook: This guy compiled some OLD-SCHOOL WF 79 stuff into a sucky-commemorative of a day I'll never forget/example of how one afternoon, much less 16-minutes changes life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bKDQTPt22w (Wondering where your friend lived? It is a small world...)

Also, I think it took a HAM Radio guy from WY/favored called in from by Granddad 5 days to find us in 79 and we were just tangentially hit... Complete "grid/comms" cut back in 79 for at least 4 days.

Yeah, even a bath tub of H2O and a Coleman stove can help...

[cmailliard]

The report of 20 kids dying in the school is again difficult for me, just as it was after Newtown. K, 1, 2, 3 graders, just should not have to endure that, nobody should but especially those kiddos. Maybe it's because my daughter is 6 and in Kindergarten that it's more difficult for me. Also my job this year had me going around to many elementary schools and teaching teachers, I really enjoyed going into those schools and seeing the kiddos and how much they love school (vs. high schoolers), seeing them laugh and play was awesome. I think that's why Newtown and now Moore are difficult for me.

As far as schools and how they are built, it's all about money. Why have no kids died in a school fire in two decades, because of building and fire codes. That was expensive for schools to adopt, many older schools still do not have sprinklers in them (you do not have to meet code unless you renovate, then it must be brought up to current code). New schools built from the ground up as I am sure these schools in Moore will be, can have new features built into them to protect students better. Just as the World Trade Center is being built beyond the code to protect life better. But still nobody really builds beyond the code, why, because they don't have to. It's all about money. I would like to see these schools in Moore rebuilt strong and act as a model for future construction.

It also just shows that with all the money we dump into Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, ATF, Etc., for preventing terrorism our greatest threat is still mother nature. This 30 minute storm killed and injured more than Aurora, Newtown and Boston combined, will have damages in in the millions of dollars. It was just as random and violent as those events but because we cannot "blame" anyone or anything not much will change. There will not be a nationwide push for safer schools, there will not be hearings in Washington, why? Leave that for another thread. It just pisses me off, that we only look and act on things where there is an easy blame, be it person or object.

May 1999 and now 2013 that part of Oklahoma City has seen enough destruction for several lifetimes, I hope they are done. I hope the families can recover.

I know several good organizations going to work down there. If you want to help look at Team Rubicon as a great volunteer organization that does great things.

Stay Safe

[Rucker61]

As far as schools and how they are built, it's all about money. Why have no kids died in a school fire in two decades, because of building and fire codes.

Isn't it more like 50 years here in the US?