May 2013 Tornado

This is May 19, 2013.  This tornado hit Carney, Oklahoma.  Carney is the town Jerry's parents and grandmother live in.  Grandma's house came out fine but mom and dad's house was destroyed.  Everyone was ok and the house is being rebuilt (ahead of schedule so far) so all is good.  This picture was taken by my mother in law before they decided to go to the town shelter, they barely made it.  Every house on their street was a loss, in fact right after the storm my brother in law was looking for them (no cell service) and couldn't get down the street leading to the only entrance to their street because a house was in the street.



On May 20, 2013 the F5 tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma.  Several children were killed at one school and another school down the street was destroyed as well.  Jerry worked day and night for days helping with search and rescue and recovery.  We didn't see him for 3 days. And then we saw very little of him for a couple of weeks.


This is the tornado on May 31, 2013.  I believe this one also got to F5 status and I know it is the widest on record.  This is standing in my drive way looking north.


And here is a panoramic view of the same thing.  This is the storm that killed the storm chasers from the discovery channel. All the people killed in this storm were in a car when they were killed (or sucked out of a car and killed).


We had a storm shelter installed in March 2013, best decision ever.  This pictured storm didn't hit us but another one did touch down about 1/2 a mile from us.  We spent 2 hours in/very near the storm shelter because of 2 hours of sustained 100+ MPH winds.  The tornado that touched down near us was much smaller but there was still a lot of damage.  Our only loss was the boys wooden swing set.  The anchors worked so well that it split the monkey bar supports as the wind was trying to lift it and the anchors was holding in down.