Weather

[?]gravybeast 78 points79 points80 points 9 hours ago*

This is a long read but I need to get this off my chest. This is my first hand encounter from ground zero. Sorry for making this one long paragraph. I am fairly manic right now and need to vent.

I have included this album which is some pictures from the doorway of the CVS and some pictures I took while walking around helping people.http://imgur.com/a/XAzh6

Today was literally the most traumatic day I have ever had. I live in Moore, Oklahoma. Today my city was hit by what they are projecting as the deadliest tornado in recorded history. At around 4:30PM I was taking a nap and heard thunder. There were warnings the last few days that the storms projected for my area might be severe. I got up and turned on the news. Sure enough they were saying there was a tornado building intensity and it was literally heading straight for me.

I live in an apartment complex on the second floor so I packed a bag and went to find shelter. A grabbed my keys and ran outside. By the look of things, I decided I didn't have much time. I ended up going to the convenience store (CVS for you Americans) next door to get in the freezer since it's basically a giant steel box. I made it to the store and the manager was extremely frantic about to have a heart attack. He was rushing everyone to the back which was a terrible idea as there was little to no protection vs being in the freezer. Somewhere within a few minutes of being there it started to hail and the wind picked up. For those of you that don't know what hail is, it is basically frozen rain that turns into ice chunks and they can get big. This hail was about golf ball size. I decided to go to the back and calm everyone down. My mom called me frantically wondering where I was because she was watching on the news that the tornado had got quite large and was heading right for me. I told her my plan and she told me to get in my car and drive as fast as possible away because there is no way i'd survive if I didn't get to a proper shelter. I told her to calm down as I had no choice but to stay. My phone cut out and wouldn't dial out.

The power then went out and everyone started to freak out. The only light in this small room was the light from a few cell phones. I tried to calm them down as much as I could but they were hysterical. There was little to no protection in the room we were in. There was a lady with a baby and I made sure she got the best protection by forcing her under a sink. I know it sounds bad but that was literally the best thing she could have done. My mom then called me again and said to get to somewhere safe as it should be hitting me within a few seconds and then the phone cut out again. I stayed calm. At around 5PM the wind began to get louder and louder. We had a radio going and our local weather/news man Mike Morgan said something along the lines of "This is an established F4 tornado! If you are not underground you need to be! You are not safe unless you are underground!" At that moment like it was straight out of a movie, the building started to shake. The wind was so loud. Imagine the sound of a massive waterfall combined with a train. Now I wasn't too worried until then but just hearing that come from the radio as a tornado was simultaneously rolling over the top of me put something in prospective. I remember looking around the room with the little light I had wondering what I would try to hold on to when the roof was surely ripped off. Sure enough the wind got progressively louder and louder and the ceiling started to lift and drop back down making a loud bang each time. About 10 times of this and the wind died down a bit. After a good minute it was completely calm. I ran out of the make shift shelter to see if I could get a glimpse of what nearly put an end to me. Yes I know large storms have an eye to them and I could have been right in the middle of it but that wasn't the case. As I got to the front of the store I noticed a ton of lumber and debris had blown through the glass windows. I ran past the debris and went outside to see the tornado absolutely destroying the neighborhood across the street from me. It was mezmerizing.

It looked like it was moving in slow motion slowly away from me. Imagine a snow globe being shaken up the specs in it floating around and around in circles very slow. Imagine those specs being bricks and large pieces of lumber. 1.5 miles wide they said. I waited until it was out of site and went outside a bit further. I noticed every car I saw in the parking lot had every window completely broken out and missing. I could see the businesses across the street were demolished. Every few inches on the ground was some piece of someones house be it a brick, some type of wood, dishes, whatever a home consists of. These homes were hundreds of feet away. Within a few minutes a guy came stumbling across the street with 2 small dogs. He was cut up and saying he didn't know where his wife and kids were. I ran into the store and got him some water and watched his dogs while he calmed down a bit. I told him to hang in there and keep hope. I started to hear people yelling so I ran across the street to help. Nothing could ever prepare someone for what it looked like.

Once miles and miles of brick and wood homes were now either completely gone or demolished for as far as I could see. Cars and trees were in people bedrooms. Cars and fences in trees. Dogs running wild and scared. The smell of natural gas fumes. A house was in flames. I knew at any minute the whole place could explode but I've lived a good life and want to make sure others got to as well. I ran in and started tearing apart homes and yelling if anyone was trapped. Every time I found someone I flagged down emergency personnel and went to the next house to find another. Most everyone I found was ok or had minor injuries. Most. There is one lady that will never leave my memories and that is all I will say about that. After 2 sheets and a makeshift cross we moved on.

Shortly after I found a kid probably 10 years old aimlessly walking around looking for his dog. I asked him where his parents were and he was frantic about his dog. I asked him where he lived and he pointed to a pile of debris and started to run towards it. He was screaming the dogs name, Molly I think. Amazingly after a few seconds I heard barking from under a large pile of wood. I ran up to the top of it and started ripping it apart. Out poked Molly's head! Hooray! As I removed a few more boards I got a bad site. Molly had a bad cut on her side. The kid saw it and started crying. Luckily dogs are generally happy creatures no matter what happens to them and this dog had a giant smile so I used that as fuel and told the kid the dog just has a small scrape and shes a super dog. Thankfully he seemed to agree and started laughing. I didn't want the kid to be alone so I decided to make him feel like a hero and told him to help me go house to house finding people until I could find some police to hand him over to. Within a few minutes I heard a lady yelling the kids name and running towards him. It was his mom and I've never seen someone so happy in my life.

I got a move on and found a few more people before almost passing out from the gas fumes and exhaustion from skipping breakfast and sleeping through lunch. As I was headed back to the CVS store, it was a very eerie experience. People were walking around like zombies. They were just in a daze. I walked by a local news team and had my head down saying 'its terrible, its all gone'. They asked to do an interview. I was in too much of a daze to do anything like that. I just kept walking. I went to my apartment and made some food. While eating I walked around to assess the damage. My ceiling is ripped up. There are broad boards stuck into my walls like arrows. My windows are completely broken out. I wont have water or power for weeks if not a month or longer. Not sure where to put this but I just remember I stepped on so many nails today.I took some vitamins and got some motivation and ran back out. I met up with a Red Cross member and asked if I could help. He gave me a case of water and told me to hand it out. I walked a few miles doing so. I went back to my apartment and grabbed as many cold beers, blankets and towels as I could and went back out. I handed them out with the rest of my water bottles. The look on people face cracking a can and taking a big drink after losing everything will forever be ingrained in my memory. It was starting to get dark and the national guard and police officers were kicking people out of the area as they didn't want looters (people stealing from others homes). I snuck around and helped as much as I could and when I felt I couldn't do much more I went back to my apartment and loaded up my car to head to my parents for a few weeks. Btw my car went from brand new to looking like it got in a fight with Mike Tyson and lost horribly. Windows and tires are fine but it's got giant dents all around. My parents live roughly 15 minutes from me. With all the debris in the roads/down power poles and power lines/police blockades, it took me 3 hours to get there. The president has declared this a Major National Disaster. I'm now watching my local news and the newscaster just summed it up very well, it looks like they took the entire city and put it in a giant blender and dumped it back out. I thank everyone for reading this.

edited to break into paragraphs. still terrible formatting but i cant think straight atm. i'm so beat but i'm absolutely wired. i keep thinking i hear sirens fading in and out just outside my window. sorry guys, i tried.