The Storms are Finally Over



It is Friday, June 7th, and the sun is shining!  The storms have finally come to an end.  I think everybody's nerves and emotions are a bit frayed.  As many of you know, we lived in the house that we sold in January 2012 for 16 years.  It was located a few houses down the street from Briarwood Elementary in south Oklahoma City/Moore which was destroyed by an EF5 tornado on May 20, 2013.  The picture you see is taken from our old lot looking out over what is left of the neighborhood.  The other pictures are what was left of our old home.

 It was very sad to walk through the rubble.  We built the house and had put a lot of hard work into the backyard as well and all that was left were a few patio blocks and a tree stump.  The icture of the tornado shelter that was in teh garage floor is proof that you are safe in one of those.  It's still there and intact.

So many of our friends lost their homes and/or cars or had a lot of damage done to them.  The help that is pouring into these areas is amazing.  So many people from other States have flocked into the area to clean off the slabs and organize donations in all the different centers and churches.  In fact most of these donation sites are not taking any more as they are full.  If you are working at the site of your home it won't be long before somebody comes by with food and drinks at no cost.  Many of the groups helping on sites are also handing out gift cards to the families to help buy clothes and other necessary items.  For the most part I think that insurance companies are coming through for them and I've also heard of folks getting help from FEMA.  I think the folks that are struggling with claims are those whose homes are not considered totaled by their insurance companies. 

It will take years before this area is back to normal.

 

We now live in our motorhome 14 miles SW of our old home in the middle of three small towns called Bridge Creek, Blanchard and Newcastle.  The May 20th tornado started about 2 miles to the west of our location.  Several of them that come into the Moore area come from out our way.  We have a large tornado shelter here and the girls and I were in it on the 20th.  It wasn't long before we knew the storm had missed us and back in the RV I watched in horror as the monster ground into Moore, OK.  It was hours before we knew what had happened to family and friends as phone service was at a minimum.  John's son, Paul and his family live about 2 blocks south of its path and took shelter in their garage floor shelter.  Thankfully, they had very little damage - just a lot of debris in their yard.

 There were several storms and tornadoes that hit the night prior as well in some communitites east of Moore doing a lot of damage and then on the 31st they hit again west and north of us but in the metro area.  Although the El REno tornado was the largest on record in the world and was also an EF5, it did not cause as much structural damage as the Moore tornado because it was touching down in a less populated area.  At one point it was headed directly for downtown OKC and turned south before it hit.  There were several tornadoes that night and straight line winds.  At one point it appeared that possibly Moore would be hit again but I think all that came in was wind damage.

 

Unfortunately, with each of these storms there were several lives lost which is so very sad.  On May 20th we lost several children in an elementary school and in other locations as well as adults.  Thankfully, many people were still at work as it hit mid-afternoon or there may have been more deaths.  On May 31sth the storms were very strange and unpredictable and several people lost their lives in their vehicles when they got caught in them.  Several people, including children, also sought refuge in drainage ditches and because of the immense amount of rain we had they were swept away in flash flooding.  Our prayers go out to all these families who have lost loved ones this past month in these monster storms.

 

We do have a storm shelter at the RV park we live in and we are installing one on the RV lot we own in Sulphur so we are never caught in a bad situation.  I urge all our Oklahoma friends and family in Oklahoma to please please please install storm shelters if do not have one.  Do not rely on a neighbor or getting to a safe place that you have to drive to.

 

I hope now we can enjoy the rest of the summer uneventfully.  OKC is completely out of the 2-year drought and the area that we have our RV lot in near Lake Arbuckle is about back to normal as well.  That lake was down 7' and only has 2' to go before it is at normal level.