May 3 '99 - 10 years
Aftermath of the 5/3/99 OKC F5 twister
Today marks ten years since arguably the most destructive tornado outbreak in Oklahoma history. Many tornadoes were produced in that storm system, but the one that's become synonymous with "May 3" in Oklahomans' minds is the F5 (and some say F6) tornado that hit and decimated south Oklahoma City and its suburbs of Moore/Bridge Creek. It was the strongest tornado to ever hit a major city, and held the strongest recorded winds on Earth - winds up to 318 mph at one point. 10,000 homes were damaged/destroyed and 44 people died in this one tornado, which - considering the population density of the area it hit - is actually amazingly low. (One veteran storm chaser had believed "hundreds of lives" would be lost if this storm hit the city.)
Thankfully, neither me nor anyone I knew closely was directly affected by the tornado, though I had a neighbor who said her boyfriend died when the storm hit Bridge Creek. I've lived in OKC for 22 years and have been lucky enough never to have been directly hit by one, though like most people here I've had a handful of close calls. I remember watching the non-stop coverage for this one on local TV, and being mildly annoyed at first because May 3 was when the TPM "Duel of the Fates" music video was premiering on MTV, and I was babysitting a girl with severe separation anxiety who was freaking out that her mom was in the path of the storm (there was no chance she was anywhere near it). I was never worried it was going to hit my part of town, but the more I watched, the more horrifying it became. The tornado hit on OKC's far south side, and all of the local TV stations are on the north side, but even looking at the view from just the stations' TV tower cameras, you could still see the funnel as it tore across south OKC. The storm was monstrous, and stayed on the ground for hours, actually getting stronger as it neared the city.
Tornadoes are a fact of life for anyone who lives in Oklahoma (or anywhere in the Midwest), almost to the point of desensitization: even after May 3, when the sirens go off, many Okies are more apt to turn on the TV or rush outside to look for the funnel instead of take shelter. (This is largely due to standard procedure being - at least in OKC - for sirens across all of Oklahoma County to go off anytime there's a tornado indicated anywhere in the county.) Most of the time, the worst you see is some houses with their roofs torn off. But this was pretty much the worst-case scenario anyone could imagine, the sort that makes the movie Twister - which came out before this - look like a kiddie ride. Even now, though, it's still kind of unnerving to watch the movie scene where the main characters are driving through the decimated town of Wakita, because it looks exactly like the aftermath in south OKC/Moore.
This clip shows some good footage of the storm and its increasing size as it neared the metro (so wide at one point it barely fits on the screen), and a glimpse of the aftermath. This one is as amazing a clip I've ever seen/heard of the sound of the storm, and an amazing closeup of the debris cloud - just chilling. There's a pretty good picture gallery here.
Needless to say, with tornado season in full swing right now, we're not looking for a repeat.