Something Moore

May 20, 2013 was the scariest day of my life.  It was the day a huge tornado destroyed my town and a day I will never forget.  I've been meaning to/ trying to write this post for the last couple of weeks, but it's been too overwhelming to tell my story.  I should start by saying that Clay and I are amazingly blessed.  While our story is horrifying, we didn't lose anything in the terrible storm.  God watched out for our family that day!

The tornado on the 20th didn't take anyone by surprise.  What I mean by that is simply OKC has the most amazing storm monitoring and warning system in the country.  Unless you live here you can't truly appreciate how weather aware everyone is and how the local media covers potential weather issues.  My phone has an app that sends me text alerts when there are severe weather warnings and broadcasts the emergency signal when there is a tornado or other severe threat in the area.  Then when you watch the local weather coverage they can literally track a storm block by block and street by street.  It really is an amazing system.

To fully tell the story, I have to start with Sunday May 19th.  We had our small group over to our house and the local weatherman was predicting severe storms.  I told everyone I would understand if they wanted to stay home, but since we are the only family in our group with a tornado shelter I offered that everyone come to our house just in case. 

Everyone came and the storms did spin up.  We watched the local media, but while it started to our southwest, the storm tracked to our south and when it did become a tornado it headed to the town of Shawnee.  Unfortunately that tornado did damage to a co-worker's home and a friend's brother's home.  But at our house we gathered around the window and watched as 2 inches of rain fell in a matter of minutes and our house was pummeled by baseball size hail for 20 minutes.  The storm was really amazing and terrifying!  But everyone was safe!!

On the 20th, Clay and I were both at work and Pierce was at daycare with Miss Janet.  Pierce was in a small home where Miss Janet only kept 3 infants 0-12months.  We really loved it there, but we knew Pierce would only be able to stay a couple more months since he was 10.5 months old.

The afternoon of the 20th I was in a staff meeting at work when my phone started sending tornado watch alerts for all of the counties in the metro.  My boss, who recently moved to the Oklahoma area, was trying to figure out how to get her phone to send her alerts, and in general the team was distracted.  About 30 minutes into our meeting the tornado warning sirens went off at our office and my phone alerted me to start watching the streaming coverage of the weather.  It was around 2:45pm.

As we hustled to the basement of the building (I work in north OKC) the tornado sirens are going off and the weather is starting to cover the development of a supercell over New Castle, which is south west of Moore.  This is the usual weather pattern and the original path looked like it would head straight for my house.  To tell you the truth, at this moment I wasn't scared.  This happens so frequently that I suspected nothing more than a large thunder storm.  I was wrong.

As we watched the coverage streaming live on my phone hunkered in the basement of our office building me and my co-workers watched as the tornado began to form.  And then the forecaster changed the trajectory of the storm, and instead of predicting the storm would move over my house, it shifted north and headed straight into Moore. 

At this moment I began to get scared.  I knew that the projected path sent the storm directly towards Pierce's daycare.  And I knew Miss Janet didn't have a storm shelter.

I honestly don't know how long we sat in the basement watching the tornado develop.  As I understand it the local media provided the city of Moore with approximately 16 minutes of warning.  I remember watching the radar screen flash the horrible red and yellow colors indicating the eye of the storm.  I remember the weatherman predicting street by street where the storm was heading.  I remember the weatherman saying this storm was so big that if you couldn't get underground you wouldn't be safe.  And I was terrified.

I sat in that basement and prayed.  I prayed that God would save my baby.  I prayed that God would put his all powerful hands around my little man and keep him safe.  I cried out to God for his mercy.  I begged God to watch out over Pierce.  And I prayed and I prayed and I prayed.  I begged all of my co-workers to pray with me.  And we all sat helplessly in the basement of my office building as that tornado passed over Pierce's daycare.

I remember the weatherman saying that the Stonemeadows neighborhood was a total loss.  I remember my heart sinking.  I have never known fear like this before.  I was so scared I was watching my baby die and there was nothing I could do about it.

And two miracles happened!

As soon as we watched the storm pass over what would be Pierce's daycare and I thought I might be able to call Miss Janet I dialed her number.  And by the grace of God I received a few seconds of cell coverage.  I heard Miss Janet say "I'm okay, the babies are okay."  And then I heard her open the door from wherever she was hiding and she said "My house is gone.  My house is gone."  And then the line went dead. 

But I knew Pierce was alive!!!!!!!!!!  My heart jumped for joy.  While I was still shaken I knew my baby was okay and now I just had to get to him.  I called Clay and let him know.  However, Clay was in danger still.  The tornado was still on the ground and headed towards Clay's office.  But with our fears of losing Pierce Clay had left work and tried to outrun the tornado to get to Pierce.  I was able to get a hold of Clay so he knew that Pierce was okay.  He later told me that he probably drove 70+mph down a city street to outrun the tornado and then began dodging cops as they started to set up the roadblocks. 


Back at the office, my co-workers packed me up and we got on the road.  I was in no condition to drive and the weather was still horrible.  A good friend of mine, Acacia, was with me and she had the clarity of mind to have someone grab my gym bag so I would have my tennis shoes in case we had to hike in to get to Pierce.  Another co-worker, Harlan, drove Acacia and I to Moore.  Acacia lives near me and her home was in the path of the tornado so she wasn't sure what she was headed home to find.  And in addition, her husband is Clay's boss and the tornado was still headed for his office.  We continued to pray for their safety as we sped away from the office.

By this time all of the highways were jammed with folks trying to get home.  We got off on the city streets and tried to maneuver that traffic.  The rain continued to pour and hail beat the vehicle.  I really don't remember much of the drive south.  I was very thankful for text messages.  Cell phone service essentially shut down but we were still able to get texts.  The best text I received was from Clay saying he had arrived and Miss Janet's house and he had Pierce!  My heart praised God because my family was safe.

As we continued south we got to south OKC and the roadblocks started going up.  Luckily Acacia had been thinking and had directed us along a path so that we were near her mom's house when we couldn't make it any further south.  So we went there and hung out for about 3 hours.  As we sat in the quiet house we listened as emergency sirens raged non-stop the entire time.  We didn't have electricity and our phone batteries were dying so we had no idea what was going on.  So we just sat and prayed for all of the folks out in it.

Around 7pm Acacia's husband, Brad, finally made it to her mom's house.  He reported that the traffic was awful but he thought he had figured out how to get home.  We forced ourselves to eat a sandwich and headed out.  In the end we had to drive out past Tinker and go down the east side of Thunderbird lake to get to Indian Hills and come in from the south.  I finally made it home around 9:30pm.

I ran into the house, hugged Clay and went and grabbed Pierce.  Then I sat on the floor of his nursery with Clay and we cried.  And we praised God for our miracle!

For the next couple of days we ran a refugee camp out of our home.  Somehow our house still had electricity so we were able to provide shelter to a couple of families in our small group.  One family's home lost its roof and had a couple of broken windows.  The other family's home was a total loss.  We were just thankful none of our friend's were injured.

In the end we are still recovering.  We've had several rounds of bad storms since then and I have been fearful of the bad weather.  Pierce is fine.  We took him to the doctor just to be safe and he was a totally healthy little boy.  We praise God for our miracle!

We also found a new daycare and yes, it has a tornado shelter!!!

The city of Moore is recovering, but it will take a long time.  The destruction is everywhere and it's heartbreaking to see.  We are all victims and the emotional scars will take a long time to heal.  Everyone lost something that day, whether physical or emotional.  I know I lost my sense of security.  Please continue to pray for those of us affected.  The media came and went.  Volunteers have mostly gone.  But we are still left with a huge scar that will be around for a long time.