Multiple tornadoes touched down in central and southern Oklahoma after midnight on Sunday, ripping the siding off homes, flipping cars and downing power lines.
At 1:23am, the National Weather Service first warned about one of the tornados that was sweeping through eastern Oklahoma City and heading toward nearby Midwest City and Tinker Air Force Base.
Tornado warnings were issued for more than 300,000 residents in parts of Oklahoma City – and so far, six people have been injured.
Images depicting the aftermath of the storms showed severely damaged houses and downed power lines all throughout the city – as petrified locals revealed that they were awoken to howling winds and flying debris.
Meteorologists predicted that severe thunderstorms will last throughout the northern Texas and Oklahoma all the way into Monday. The NWS said strong winds, flooding and more tornados are all possibilities in the coming hours.
A home in southeastern Oklahoma City is completely destroyed in the aftermath
This home is near SE 89th & Sooner Rd, where five of the six reported injuries occurred
In the same area, a pickup truck was seen flipped into someone’s yard
Daniel and Cherry Haggard revealed they were awoken by loud noises and objects breaking their windows during the life-threatening weather front.
‘We were laying in bed and we heard this big noise and it sounded like a train was going by,’ Daniel told KFOR. ‘Then we heard this thumping and crashing against the house. Stuff had blown in between our house and the house on our west side and it broke the windows in our bedroom.
The couple explained that they had to scramble to get buckets to contain the water gushing into their home from the windows and their damaged roof.
Joe Payne had a similar experience, telling KFOR just about everything he owns is now totaled.
‘We were all in bed and when I heard the noise when the thing hit I thought it was just a direct hit by lightning,’ Payne said. ‘It was a loud pop. But it was the roof coming off the house.’
Southeastern Oklahoma City was one of the hardest hit areas, News 9 reported.
Daniel and Cherry Haggard, pictured, were sent scrambling in the middle of the night when debris flew into their home through their bedroom windows
Joe Payne, too, said there was extensive damage to the roof of his home. He said most of his possessions are totaled
So far, there have been at least six reported injuries, all of them non-life-threatening, according to the Oklahoma City Police Department
KFOR’s Chief Meteorologist Mike Morgan said there could have been up to seven tornados, with other outlets reporting the number was as low as three or as high as 13.
NWS teams have already begun surveying the damage. They concluded that Valley Brook, a neighborhood in Oklahoma City, has been dealt EF-2 tornado damage.
That level of destruction is caused by a twister with winds of 111mph to 135mph.
So far, there have been at least six reported injuries, all of them non-life-threatening, according to the Oklahoma City Police Department.
Five of the injuries happened near SE 89th & Sooner Rd, which is in the southeastern portion of the city.
‘We have several structures that have sustained damage, along with downed power lines, traffic lights and trees,’ the Oklahoma City Fire Department said. ‘Utilities have also been affected, and five individuals were transported to local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.’
Amateur video shot by a citizen shows the extensive damage to Newcastle Elementary School, which borders Oklahoma City to its southeast
Home video shows the heavy rain hitting Oklahoma during the tornados and storms early Sunday morning
There are over 50,000 Oklahomans that remain without electricity as of publishing, according to PowerOutage.us.
In the areas surrounding Oklahoma City – including Tulsa, the Choctaw Nation and parts of western Oklahoma – there are roughly 16,000 customers without power.
Amateur video shot by a citizen also showed the extensive damage to Newcastle Elementary School, which borders Oklahoma City to its southeast.
The school’s fourth and fifth grade center along with its gymnasium was missing its roof completely, KOCO 5 reported.
The video also showed what appeared to be insulation from inside the walls of the school building strewn all over the grass, the sidewalk and the road.
A massive powerline was thrown down during the storm, landing on the roof of a house
This graphic from NOAA offers a probability outlook that tornados will form in the above areas
This graphic, formed with NWS forecasting data, shows the possible amount of rain certain areas in Oklahoma could experience into Monday night
Another devastating video revealed the damage to one homeowner’s garage.
The roof and what used to be the garage doors were completely gone, leaving the inside completely exposed. His cars were inside at the time of the storm, which led to them getting crushed by falling walls.
The most recent weather radar images show the storm moving past Oklahoma City and over Tulsa.
According to the most recent NWS forecast, heavy rain storms are expected to move east into the Mid-Mississippi Valley as well as Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana.
‘The ongoing active weather system over the south-central U.S. will continue to trigger additional rounds of heavy rain and severe weather for the remainder of today, with the heaviest rainfall expected to impact central to eastern Oklahoma into portions of northwestern Arkansas and southern Missouri,’ according to the NWS.
Flash flood warnings remain in effect in several areas of southern Oklahoma, including parts of Marshall, Carter and Love counties.
