Oklahoma tornado: Rescuers dig for life after twister leaves 24 dead

Families returned to a blasted moonscape that had been an American suburb Tuesday after a monstrous tornado tore through the outskirts of Oklahoma City, killing at least 24 people.

Passengers flying into Oklahoma City could see the track left by nature's fury as it played out Monday: the spot where the tornado touched down, then chewed through the suburb of Moore like a giant lawnmower for 45 terrifying minutes.

Nine children were among the dead and entire neighborhoods vanished, with often the foundations being the only thing left of what used to be houses and cars tossed like toys and heaped in big piles.

"It's unreal. It's so visceral," said 32-year-old accountant Roger Graham as he combed through the ruins of the three-bedroom home he shared with his wife Kalissa, a school teacher, recovering what he could.

Kelly Pirtle of the US weather agency's Severe Storms Laboratory in nearby Norman, told AFP the tornado was the strongest possible category, EF5, packing winds of more than 200 miles per hour (321 kilometers per hour).

Oklahoma City police chief Bill Citty told a news conference that 20 people had been killed in Moore and four more elsewhere in the city.

"There could be obviously others in the coming days. The search is still going on, heavily in Moore because they have such a large area to cover," he said, adding: "So we have a 24 right now. There could be more.

"All of the people that have been reported missing -- initially last night, about 48 -- all of those have been actually found except for I think a few left in Moore that they are working on to try to locate that have not."

At least 101 people have been pulled alive from under debris, said Terri Watkins of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, and officials said more than 200 people have been injured.

Some of the children killed were buried when the two-mile wide funnel of wind demolished an elementary school.

US President Barack Obama declared a "major disaster" as crews combed the wreckage of the shattered community, where even residents with long memories of past storms were shocked by the devastation.

In televised remarks from the White House, Obama made special mention of the young victims as he mourned those lost and promised to provide survivors with the help they need to find their footing.

"The people of Moore should know that their country will remain on the ground there for them, beside them as long as it takes for their homes and schools to rebuild," Obama said.

"There are empty spaces where there used to be living rooms and bedrooms and classrooms and in time we're going to need to refill those spaces with love and laughter and community," he added.

The killer system -- packing powerful winds of up to 200 miles per hour (322 kilometers per hour) -- flattened block after block of homes, set off fires, downing power lines and tossed cars.

Stunned weather forecasters described an epic two-mile (three-kilometer) wide mid-afternoon storm, as news helicopter footage showed a dark twister plowing through densely packed suburbs.

"To me, this is bigger than anything I've ever seen. It's absolutely huge. It's horrific," Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said.

"It looked like somebody just set off something that just destroyed structures, not blocks, but miles of areas, and major buildings from hospitals to schools to banks to shopping centers, movie theaters."

Local television footage on Monday showed children as young as nine being pulled out of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, a residential community of 55,000 just south of Oklahoma's state capital.

"I had to hold onto the wall to keep myself safe," one little girl said.

The Moore Medical Center was evacuated after it sustained damage, and state authorities called out the National Guard to help rescue efforts as Obama ordered federal aid to supplement local recovery efforts.

Rescue operations already hindered by the mounds of debris and fallen power lines could be further disrupted by more foul weather.

"I had no idea it was coming," said a horse stable worker, who told how he survived the "unbearably loud" twister by taking cover in one of the stalls.

Monday's tornado followed roughly the same track as a May 1999 twister that killed 44 people, injured hundreds more and destroyed thousands of homes.

Tornadoes frequently stalk Oklahoma's wide open plains but Monday's twister struck a populated urban area. Because of the hard ground, few homes here are built with basements or storm shelters in which residents can take cover.

Oklahoma City lies inside the so-called "Tornado Alley" stretching from South Dakota to central Texas, an area particularly vulnerable to tornadoes, but Moore's residents were shocked at the devastation.

Some 29,000 people remained without power early Tuesday, according to OG&E, the local utility.

The National Weather Service forecast more tornadoes later Tuesday, with parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas most likely to be affected. (AFP)
 

EARLIER

Emergency workers searched for survivors in the rubble of homes, schools and a hospital in an Oklahoma town hit by a powerful tornado, but officials on Tuesday sharply lowered the number of deaths caused by the storm.

 The Oklahoma state medical examiner's office said 24 bodies had been recovered from the wreckage of Monday's storm, down from the 51 they had reported earlier. The earlier number likely reflected some double-counted deaths, said Amy Elliott, chief administrative officer for the medical examiner.

 The 2-mile (3-km) wide tornado tore through Moore outside Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon, trapping victims beneath the rubble. One elementary school took a direct hit and another was destroyed.

 

Click to see gallery of frightening tornado devastation

 

 Thunderstorms and lightning slowed the rescue effort on Tuesday, but officials lowered the number of bodies recovered.

 "We have got good news. The number right now is 24," Elliot said. "There was a lot of chaos."

 She said additional bodies could yet be recovered.

 Firefighters from more than a dozen fire departments worked all night under bright spotlights trying to find survivors at Plaza Towers Elementary School, which took a direct hit. Rescuers were sent from other states to join the search.

 President Barack Obama declared a major disaster area in Oklahoma, ordering federal aid to supplement state and local efforts in Moore after the deadliest U.S. tornado since 161 people were killed in Joplin, Missouri, two years ago.

 The White House said Obama would make a statement on the Oklahoma tornado at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT).

 "The whole city looks like a debris field," Glenn Lewis, the mayor of Moore, told NBC.

 "It looks like we have lost our hospital. I drove by there a while ago and it's pretty much destroyed," Lewis said.

 There was an outpouring of grief on Plaza Towers' Facebook page, with messages from around the country including one pleading simply: "Please find those little children."

 The National Weather Service assigned the twister a preliminary ranking of EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, meaning the second most powerful category of tornado with winds up to 200 mph (320 kph). 

School tragedy

 U.S. Representative Tom Cole, who lives in Moore, said the Plaza Tower school was the most secure and structurally strong building in the area.

 "And so people did the right thing, but if you're in front of an F4 or an F5 there is no good thing to do if you're above ground. It's just tragic," he said on MSNBC TV.

 At least 60 of the 240 people injured were children, hospital officials said.

 Witnesses said Monday's tornado appeared more fierce than the giant twister that was among the dozens that tore up the area on May 3, 1999, killing more than 40 people and destroying thousands of homes. That tornado ranked as an EF5 tornado with wind speeds of more than 200 mph.

 The 1999 tornado ranks as the third-costliest tornado in U.S. history, having caused more than $1 billion in damage at the time, or more than $1.3 billion in today's dollars. Only the devastating Joplin and Tuscaloosa tornadoes in 2011 were more costly.

 Jeff Alger, 34, who works in the Kansas oil fields on a fracking crew, said his wife Sophia took their children out of school when she heard a tornado was coming and then fled Moore and watched it flatten the town from a few miles away. 

 "They didn't even have time to grab their shoes," said Alger, who has five children aged 4 to 11. The storm tore part of the roof off of his home. He was with his wife at Norman Regional Hospital to have glass and other debris removed from his wife's bare feet.

 Moore was devastated with debris everywhere, street signs gone, lights out, houses destroyed and vehicles tossed about as if they were toys.

 The dangerous storm system threatened several southern Plains states with more twisters.

 Saved by cellphone

 Speaking outside Norman Regional Hospital Ninia Lay, 48, said she huddled in a closet through two storm alerts and the tornado hit on the third. 

 "I was hiding in the closet and I heard something like a train coming," she said under skies still flashing with lightning. The house was flattened and Lay was buried in the rubble for two hours until her husband Kevin, 50, and rescuers dug her out. 

 "I thank God for my cell phone, I called me husband for help."

 Her 7-year-old daughter Catherine, a first-grader at Plaza Towers Elementary School, took shelter with classmates and teachers in a bathroom when the tornado hit and destroyed the school. She escaped with scrapes and cuts.

 At Southmoore High School in Moore, about 15 students were in a field house when the tornado hit. Coaches sent them to an interior locker room and made them put on football helmets, the Oklahoman newspaper said. It said the students survived.

 The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center warned the town 16 minutes before the tornado touched down at 3:01 p.m. (2001 GMT), which is greater than the average eight to 10 minutes of warning, said Keli Pirtle, a spokeswoman for the center in Norman, Oklahoma.

 The notice was upgraded to emergency warning with "heightened language" at 2:56 p.m., or five minutes before the tornado touched down, Pirtle said.

 The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration imposed a temporary flight restriction that allowed only relief aircraft in the area, saying it was at the request of police who needed quiet to search for buried survivors.

 Oklahoma activated the National Guard, and the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency activated teams to support recovery operations and coordinate responses for multiple agencies.

 Briarwood Elementary School, which also stood in the storm's path, was all but destroyed. On the first floor, sections of walls had been peeled away, giving clear views into the building; while in other areas, cars hurled by the storm winds were lodged in the walls.