Tornado Hits Moore, OK

Steelgrave · May 21, 2013, 03:07:57 PM

Quote from: Great Ajax on May 21, 2013, 11:40:07 AM
From my backyard in north Norman, I watched the News 9 Chopper hovering less than a mile from our house as it reported on the tornado in Moore. Then the sickening feeling that the tornado was touching ground near my brothers house. My sister in law shortly arrived at the house in a panic because she couldnt contact her two kids who went to school in Moore. My brother, who was at work in OKC, started texting me asking me to please go to his house in Moore since he was blocked in traffic to try to find his stepson. As I was running out the door, the news reported that schools had been hit and then I was really scared. It took me an hour to drive the four miles to my brothers house to find my brother and his family were all okay. Their house missed the tornado by four residential blocks. I drove by the wreckage on my way to work this morning and it was overwhelming.

Trey

That's scary stuff, Trey. I'm glad your family is safe.

JasonPratt · May 21, 2013, 03:32:08 PM

That same storm system is about to arrive here in West Tennessee, btw, in the next few hours. Not as strong as it was in OKC, but then again it's puffing back up again, too.

(West Tennessee sits at a juncture between two tornado alleys, although Arkansas tends to get it worse for some reason. I've heard the Amerindians who refused to live in the region called it "The Land of Shaking Earth And Sky".)

Several years ago a number of half-mile to mile-wide F4s marched through the area (including one that was on the ground almost continuously from the other side of the Missouri bootheel); one of them butchered two neighborhoods but leapt over our house, just doing some cosmetic damage, yanking a nearby swimming pool half an inch out of the ground, throwing down a lot of trees. Absolutely crushed those other two neighborhoods, though, before churning down the road to Bradford (and merging with another half-miler nearby that had wiped a farm from its foundation and chopped a house literally in half) to kill the daughter and family of one of my mother's best friends. The town has a Harley ride sponsored by a our church every year in memorial to them; we just had it last weekend.

Fortunately we weren't in the house at the time, having moved a bit south to a basement when we knew the storm was coming. But it moved fast. Thirty seconds of a lot of wind and it was over. We literally had no idea there was even damage until we tried to get back home. Looked like a flight of Superfortresses going after a city in Japan. Plenty of people here have stories of it. I'm just as glad we weren't there. ;) I've been right in the core of a little F0 when it encompassed a diner I was in here in Dyer (whichever way we looked out the windows we could only see horizontal rain blowing in different directions), and that was more than enough for me!

I have an acquaintance who lives in OKC (and several customers); I was reading his blog today and he was talking about the devastation. Seeing a woman impaled by debris. I'm amazed that that doesn't happen more often, especially with the wedge monsters like this one. (Debris cloud was two miles wide, no doubt with satellite vortices, too around the occasionally mile-wide funnel.)

JasonPratt · May 21, 2013, 03:53:23 PM

Here's the webpage for it: http://uxblog.idvsolutions.com/2012/05/tornado-tracks.html

If possible, find a version that allows a very extensive zoom-in, and then start in the Pacific Midwest near the Canadian border; scan south along the Pacific coast to Mexico, then go east a bit to the Rockies and go north again, then east again to the edge of the Plains and south again, then east again to the northeastern border of Texas and north from there.

That little picture above DOES NOT EVEN get across the scope. My Mom and I were amazed (when we saw it last summer) how many tornadoes even Washington and Oregon have had in the pas 61 years (up to 2011). (Yep, Arizona, too. :o ) They're practically invisible on that little map. It charts a few in Canada and Mexico where NOAA had the data for them. There are links to YouTube versions which chart month by month and year by year over the 61 years (it looks less impressive that way. ;) )

We were also surprised to see that we live under one of the two largest blobs there in the south central of the map: as bad as Oklahoma and the other mid-western states have it, those areas somehow have it worse.

But zooming way in is by far the most mindblowing. Areas you would have never thought had a tornado touch down, lightly sprinkled after all.

I wonder if the team will do a new update at the end of this year. One more terrible scar across OKC... :(

Steelgrave · May 21, 2013, 04:05:06 PM

Yesterday's storm has officially been upgraded to an F-5. Considering how populated the area is, it's a miracle that more lives weren't lost, damage aside. It's horrific and a miracle at the same time. And the teachers who covered their students with their own bodies....man, what can you say to that? My youngest daughter in law teaches kindergarten and was in school just a couple miles north, where my 5 year old grandson was also in class. It just blows my mind to think it could have been their school. Or my son's workplace.

JasonPratt · May 21, 2013, 06:02:25 PM

Can't say I'm surprised it went to F5, looking at some of those damage tracks. Phew.

The wave of the front just passed over us, no big problems. I'm watching a sporadic tornado on radar that passed into TN from MS about half an hour ago; it's more likely to head toward my brother's house (with his kids and wife) than toward us, but it doesn't seem very strong as these things go, and has been somewhat weakening. I'm going to ring him up in a minute just to be sure they know, although tracking speed looks like 2 hours till arrival.

LongBlade · May 21, 2013, 06:34:57 PM

Stay safe.

Gusington · May 21, 2013, 08:06:54 PM

Good to hear that both Great Ajax's and Pratt's families are ok.

Mr. Bigglesworth · May 21, 2013, 09:25:24 PM

Quote from: Steelgrave on May 21, 2013, 12:33:52 AM
The schools were concrete. It didn't help much. You can pretty much earthquake-proof a building, tornado proofing is a whole different creature. Pretty much, if it's an F-4 or F-5 and it slows over your area (like this one did), anything above ground is in trouble.

The walls were concrete, they are undamaged. It was the roof that came off. Probably steel deck bolted to steel joists. The uplift is tremendous so any area not welded would peel up like a tin can. Its the same design as the big box retail shops that have also had problems with tornadoes. They go with flat roofs for one reason, its the cheapest way to cover an area. The residentals are all nailed together which gives no protection from the vacuum of high wind. Screws might have a chance.

It is not difficult to build something hurricane proof. I could do it easily. It is not cheap relative to regular designs.

Any Architect or Civil Engineer would give the same basic recipe. Unlike the rest of the world the design has to be aerodynamic. For a big building that means a dome of some type. The exterior shell would be a spaceframe of rebar. Take your pick on the spaceframe type, I would probably go hexagonal face. If it is 2ft across each outer face with #4 rebar that is probably enough in a curved shape to resist the upforce. If you want more you can put an additional layer of #3 1ft across. You need a deep foundation for the increasing weight of more stories toward the center.

Nothing is new, it is all well known stuff. The issue is the price for a large dome. A series of medium size domes is probably cheaper to build. A more standard alternative would be a typical highrise. A rounded shape like the London "Gherkin" would also be very resistant.

Again, it is all about cost.

Mr. Bigglesworth · May 21, 2013, 09:57:07 PM

Just saw a different report that a school collapsed. No details on what happened.

Centurion40 · May 22, 2013, 08:12:43 AM

Quote from: Steelgrave on May 21, 2013, 04:05:06 PM
Yesterday's storm has officially been upgraded to an F-5. Considering how populated the area is, it's a miracle that more lives weren't lost, damage aside. It's horrific and a miracle at the same time. And the teachers who covered their students with their own bodies....man, what can you say to that? My youngest daughter in law teaches kindergarten and was in school just a couple miles north, where my 5 year old grandson was also in class. It just blows my mind to think it could have been their school. Or my son's workplace.

Steelie, I can't imagine going through that kind of punch-in-the-gut worry for the safety of your family. I'm glad that your family came through it ok.

Centurion40 · May 22, 2013, 08:13:42 AM

Quote from: Great Ajax on May 21, 2013, 11:40:07 AM
From my backyard in north Norman, I watched the News 9 Chopper hovering less than a mile from our house as it reported on the tornado in Moore. Then the sickening feeling that the tornado was touching ground near my brothers house. My sister in law shortly arrived at the house in a panic because she couldnt contact her two kids who went to school in Moore. My brother, who was at work in OKC, started texting me asking me to please go to his house in Moore since he was blocked in traffic to try to find his stepson. As I was running out the door, the news reported that schools had been hit and then I was really scared. It took me an hour to drive the four miles to my brothers house to find my brother and his family were all okay. Their house missed the tornado by four residential blocks. I drove by the wreckage on my way to work this morning and it was overwhelming.

Trey

Again, I can't imagine the horror. Glad you all made it through unharmed.

Centurion40 · May 22, 2013, 08:14:25 AM

Quote from: LongBlade on May 21, 2013, 06:34:57 PM
Stay safe.

What LB said.

Mr. Bigglesworth · May 22, 2013, 08:10:24 PM

75 eye watering images.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/photo-galleries/tornadoes-ravage-parts-of-kansas-oklahoma-1.1289652

Centurion40 · May 23, 2013, 07:25:17 AM

I have been shocked at the level of devastation. For me, it's the trees that really drive it home. They look like they've been mauled in some kind of grinder.

LongBlade · May 23, 2013, 08:20:10 AM

Quote from: Centurion40 on May 23, 2013, 07:25:17 AM
I have been shocked at the level of devastation. For me, it's the trees that really drive it home. They look like they've been mauled in some kind of grinder.

Tornadoes do weird stuff. You'll hear stories about a piece of straw driven into a telephone pole. Or a baby picked up by one and settled unharmed a quarter mile from its house.