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Deadly Tornado Strikes El Reno, an Oklahoma City Suburb ‘There I Was, Flying Across the Room’: Tornado Leaves an Oklahoma Town Shaken
(about 5 hours later)
EL RENO, Okla. — A destructive tornado struck the Oklahoma City suburb of El Reno late on Saturday, killing at least two people and demolishing a motel and destroying much of a trailer park and a car dealership just days after the town was hit by widespread flooding. EL RENO, Okla. — Giant green dumpsters were tossed like rocks into motel rooms. Mobile homes were not just destroyed, they were shredded to scrap. Cars and trucks were spun around or flipped upside down. Doors and ceilings were ripped from walls, but picture frames, of all things, were left hanging, slightly askew.
The brief tornado tore through El Reno, a largely rural suburb of nearly 17,000 people about 25 miles west of Oklahoma City, shortly before 11 p.m. “A gust came up and our house tipped over,” said Robert Gawhega, who survived the tornado that shook his trailer the way a child shakes a toy. “There I was, flying across the room.”
At a news conference on Sunday morning, Matt White, the mayor of El Reno, said the death toll remained at two and that 29 people had been taken to hospitals. Severe weather in Tornado Alley on Saturday night made for a terrifying Memorial Day weekend.
“We do know for a fact that they are doing surgery on some people as we speak,” Mr. White said. He added that search-and-rescue efforts were continuing. A brief but violent tornado tore a two-mile path through the outskirts of the Oklahoma City suburb of El Reno, demolishing much of the American Budget Value Inn motel and two of its neighbors, the Skyview mobile-home park and a car dealership. By Sunday afternoon, local officials said there had been two fatalities.
[ Read how to stay safe and take shelter when tornadoes threaten. ] [Read how to stay safe and take shelter when tornadoes threaten.]
Photos posted on social media by bystanders and reporters showed that parts of the motel, the American Budget Value Inn, appeared to be all but leveled. Tornadoes in this part of Oklahoma have a history of being wide and long, and of carving a path of mayhem for a dozen miles or more at times. But the tornado that struck El Reno was something different: Aerial images taken by local news outlets show a short, curvy finger of destruction from a funnel that only momentarily touched down, centering much of its bite on the motel, the trailer park and the auto dealer.
“We absolutely have confirmed that all of the people from the hotel and motel are accounted for at this point in time,” the mayor said. “It’s a pretty devastating sight at this point in time,” Mayor Matt White El Reno told reporters on Sunday morning. “Pray for our community. We’ve been through a lot here lately.”
Tornado sirens began blaring at 10:27 p.m. on Saturday in El Reno, Mr. White said. At 10:31 p.m., the tornado struck, damaging a southeast section of the town near Interstate 40. The trailer park has 88 spots for mobile homes, Mr. White said, and the search-and-rescue effort was focusing on a debris-strewn area of about 15 sites. El Reno is one of several Oklahoma towns and cities that have been hard hit by widespread flooding over the past week.
The mayor, a lifelong resident of El Reno, said at an earlier news conference that emergency workers were searching the rubble for survivors. “We are all hands on deck,” Mr. White said, adding: “Pray for our community. We’ve been through a lot here lately.” Runoff from powerful storms filled the Arkansas River to bursting, prompting officials to release large amounts of water from the Keystone Dam. More than 1,000 homes in the state have been damaged by flooding, officials said.
A local television news reporter, Aaron Brilbeck of the CBS affiliate News 9, showed the power of the storm as it came through the town, posting on Twitter: “The hotel across the street from us was leveled. Victims are being pulled from the rubble.” One of the hardest-hit communities was the Tulsa suburb of Sand Springs, where 152 homes in a low-lying area near the river were flooded. The muddy waters rose just below some mailboxes and over the tops of others in the Town and Country neighborhood.
In other areas, a small army of rescue workers were busy on Saturday and Sunday delivering supplies and helping trapped residents to safety by boat and helicopter.
In Tulsa, the main concern facing officials on Sunday was the state of the city’s decades-old system of earthen levees, which have so far been holding for the most part.
On Sunday in El Reno, as emergency crews continued to search through the rubble, there was a quiet sense that the town had been spared a far deadlier disaster. Officials said everyone who had been inside the motel when the tornado struck was alive and accounted for.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service in nearby Norman said that, based on a survey of the damage, the tornado was an EF-3 — the third-strongest category on the enhanced Fujita scale, with peak winds from 136 to 165 miles an hour. EF-5 is the most powerful category. The forecasters said the tornado had been about 75 yards wide at its widest point, stayed on the ground for 2.2 miles and lasted only about four minutes.
[Read about the nerve center in Norman, Okla., where forecasters work around the clock to track severe weather and warn the public.]
It came six years, almost to the day, after El Reno was hit by another EF-3 tornado. On May 31, 2013, an unusually wide tornado barreled through the area and killed eight people.
El Reno is a working-class, largely rural suburb of nearly 17,000 people about 25 miles west of Oklahoma City. Cattle graze in the greenery on the sides of the highways, beneath billboards for oil field services companies. More than a few residents keep horses in their yards. The skyline of El Reno is dominated by grain silos, the tallest structures in a town whose history traces back to the establishment in 1874 of Fort Reno, a frontier Army post.
Tornado sirens blared in the town at 10:27 p.m. on Saturday, the mayor said. Four minutes later the tornado struck, damaging the southeastern section of the town near Interstate 40. A television news reporter, Aaron Brilbeck of the local CBS affiliate, KWTV News 9, showed the power of the storm as it came through the town, posting on Twitter: “The hotel across the street from us was leveled. Victims are being pulled from the rubble.”
At a convenience store called Domino across the street from the motel, the assistant manager, Jeffrey Pointer, said the evening had started quietly, with just a sprinkle of rain.At a convenience store called Domino across the street from the motel, the assistant manager, Jeffrey Pointer, said the evening had started quietly, with just a sprinkle of rain.
“But then it started pouring,” Mr. Pointer said. “The rain was blowing sideways. You couldn’t see anything.” “But then it started pouring,” he said. “The rain was blowing sideways. You couldn’t see anything.”
The wind blew so hard that the windows started shaking. The power cut off, and an emergency generator kicked on. Then, as quickly as it had started, the roaring wind abated, leaving only rain in its wake. The wind blew so hard that the windows started shaking. The power cut off, Mr. Pointer said, and an emergency generator kicked on. Then, as quickly as it had started, the roaring wind abated, leaving only rain in its wake.
The phones in the store started ringing, he said. The callers asked if everyone in the store was all right. Then people started walking in drenched. Some had no shirts, Mr. Pointer said. Some were injured. He said a man came to him with his arm bleeding. The phones in the store started ringing, he said, with callers asking if everyone in the store was all right. Then people started walking in the door, drenched. Some had no shirts, Mr. Pointer said. Some were injured. He said a man came to him with his arm bleeding.
“He said: ‘Can you call me an ambulance? I’m hurt real bad,’ ” Mr. Pointer said. “He said: ‘Can you call me an ambulance? I’m hurt real bad,’” Mr. Pointer said.
In the pre-dawn darkness on Sunday, the rubble of the motel was lit up by mobile emergency lighting and the flashing red and blue lights of police and fire vehicles. Dented vehicles and mobile homes poked from the debris. At the front of the motel, a stairwell led to a second story that had been torn away. At the Skyview trailer park, neither Mr. Gawhega nor his aunt, who was asleep in the trailer at the time, was injured. The mobile home was pushed onto its side.
[ Read about the nerve center in Norman, Okla., where forecasters work around the clock to track severe weather and warn the public. ] Hours later, Mr. Gawhega, who is in his late 60s, went to El Reno’s chapter headquarters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, where survivors from the motel and the trailer park slept on American Red Cross cots in the ballroom. Mr. Gawhega, an elder with the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal Nations who walks with a cane, wore his Oklahoma State University sweats — he is a retired campus groundskeeper — as he walked around the low brick building.
El Reno, in the heart of Oklahoma, is only a 30-minute drive from downtown Oklahoma City, but it feels more like the countryside. More than a century ago, before El Reno was founded, one of the chiefs prayed for the ground to be safe from tornadoes, Mr. Gawhega said, and since then tornadoes have often skirted the edges of El Reno rather than hitting it directly. He said he was grateful to have survived the storm.
On Sunday morning, the ballroom of the El Reno chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars had been turned into a shelter for tornado survivors and was filled with American Red Cross cots. Families filed into the low-brick building throughout the night, past the restored World War II-era twin-engine bomber out front. “The spirits are protecting it,” Mr. Gawhega said of the town. He said he was grateful to the spirits as well: “I am just glad to be alive.”
Nancy Salsman, auxiliary president of the El Reno V.F.W., said there were 25 people inside, many of them still sleeping after being up all night. They arrived quietly, and nearly expressionless, she said. Sofia Heck, another resident of the mobile-home park, said she and her boyfriend were on a date nearby when the tornado hit. Her teenage sons were at home alone. She had spoken with them on the phone during the storm, but feared for their safety and rushed back home, only to find the roads blocked with debris. Police officers stopped her from going in one entrance, but she sneaked in through another. Her children were safe, and her home had only minor damage.
“I’d had no idea,” Ms. Heck said, choking back tears. “That could have been the last time I saw them.”
Nancy Salsman, auxiliary president of the El Reno V.F.W., said on Sunday that there were 25 people taking shelter inside, many of them still sleeping after having been up all night. She said they had arrived quietly, and nearly expressionless.
“I think they’re in shock,” Ms. Salsman said. “Some of them lost everything.”“I think they’re in shock,” Ms. Salsman said. “Some of them lost everything.”
A tornado also struck the small city of Sapulpa, more than 120 miles east of El Reno. The police department there posted a message on its Facebook page that it had no reports of fatalities and only a few reported minor injuries. Downtown buildings “sustained some significant damage,” the police wrote.
Oklahoma has been rocked by scattered tornadoes and heavy rainfall in recent days. The storms have flooded the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma, forcing officials to release large amounts of water from the Keystone Dam. But none of the tornadoes that touched down had caused major damage or fatalities in residential areas until the one that hit El Reno late Saturday.
The tornado struck a few days before the six-year anniversary of one of the worst tornadoes to ever hit El Reno. On May 31, 2013, an unusually wide EF-3 tornado — the fourth-strongest on the enhanced Fujita scale, with an EF-5 being the most powerful — tore through the El Reno area and killed eight people.
Among those who died were three storm chasers, including Tim Samaras, who was known for his appearances on the reality television show “Storm Chasers.”