Oklahoma tornado: roofless service stations and hospital basements
Severe weather in the central state of Oklahoma caused violent tornadoes to form on Monday afternoon, flipping cars and ripping the roofs off homes, businesses, and in this case, a service station. See amateur footage of the tornado and its aftermath...
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Image from video posted on YouTube by "addisuntaylor".
Severe weather in the central state of Oklahoma caused violent tornadoes to form on Monday afternoon, flipping cars and ripping the roofs off homes, businesses, and in this case, a service station.
One of the tornadoes reached wind speeds of 103 mph. Five people are reported dead and 58 injured.
Inside a roofless service station:
A petrol station whose roof was ripped off. Video posted by "addisuntaylor" 10 May 2010. The caption reads "Love's gas station Choctaw exit".
During and after the tornado
Chasing the storm...
Posted by "TornadoAlleyVideo" 10 May 2010.
...and witnessing the aftermath
Posted by "krider07" 11 May 2010. Video caption reads: "Storm chasers Kevin Rider and Jake Wallentine followed the damage path of a strong tornado that touched down in Norman, Oklahoma and moved east along Highway 9 towards Lake Thunderbird".
“I drove up to the hospital where they have a basement for the public”
James McMinn (James63) is a business analyst who's been living in Oklahoma City for the past two years.
I was at home watching the news when the sky started to get dark. It was when the tone of the weatherman suddenly became very serious that I decided to leave the house. I live in an apartment block so I drove up to the hospital where they have a basement the public can go to. There were a lot of people driving up there and it took longer than I expected. It was quite worrying because it was a rope tornado which means you can't see it coming. The lightening kept stopping, which is not a good sign. People were running in the street.
When I got to the hospital the doctors were rushing to get patients away from the windows. There quite a few of us down in the basement and some people had brought their dogs. Luckily we were only there for about half an hour before we were given the all clear.
There's always a risk of complacency in these situations. Last year we had two alarms and I was at work so we went down into the building basement; which most office blocks have. Both times it turned out to be a false alarm though. This time I was at home. If the tornado had come up my side of the city I'm not sure I would have left in time."