Deadly twisters rip into Oklahoma City, suburbs
OKLAHOMA CITY — Tornadoes rolled in from the prairie and slammed Oklahoma City and its suburbs Friday, trapping people in their vehicles as a storm swept down an interstate highway while commuters tried to beat it home.
Five people were killed, including a mother and baby killed near Union City. Another person died at El Reno, the first city struck by the storm, said Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the state medical examiner. Circumstances involving the other two deaths weren’t immediately known, Elliott said.
About 50 people were hurt, five critically, hospital officials said.
Meteorologists had warned about particularly nasty weather Friday, but said the storm’s fury didn’t match that of a deadly twister that struck suburban Moore last week. Violent weather also moved through the St. Louis area, ripping part of the roof off a suburban casino.
Friday’s broad storm in Oklahoma hit during the evening rush hour and stuck around, causing havoc on Interstate 40, a major artery connecting suburbs east and west of the city, and dropping so much rain on the area that streets were flooded to a depth of more than a metre.
To the south, a severe storm with winds approaching 125 km/h rolled into Moore, where a top-of-the-scale EF5 tornado killed 24 people on May 20.
Rick Smith, the warning co- ordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service at Norman, said that while the storm packed a powerful punch, it wasn’t as strong as the Moore tornado.
The region was fortunate because the storm touched down mostly in rural areas and missed central Oklahoma City.
“It’s not even close to anything like what we had last week,” Smith said. “We were very concerned this would move into downtown. It would have been a major problem.”