Post by Wichita Lineman on Dec 7, 2021 17:05:16 GMT -5
On Friday April 26th 1991 I was involved in the EF-5 that hit Oologah, Oklahoma that destroyed our house that we were in at the time.
I was 18 and it was near the end of my junior year in high school.
I had gotten my first weather radio in January and there had been special statements for at least a week prior to the outbreak. The day of the outbreak was a HIGH risk day. At lunch that day while walking to the cafeteria from the high school the humidity was high and you feel it in the air and I mentioned to my buddy who walking with me, "feels like we are going to be rocking and rolling tonight" little did I know I would be doing it literally.
After school went home and when dad got home from work, me, mom and dad went to our church to do some work. Came home and had some navy beans, fried potatoes and cornbread for dinner. The tornado that hit us developed near Yale, OK around 7 pm at around 7:30 pm our electric went off when the tornado hit an electric substation near Yale that our rural electric cooperative used. So with no power and it starting to get dark, my dad decides to go to bed, mom sits in her recliner to wait for the electric to come back on and I go to my room to listen the weather radio and battery power radio.
The tornado continued to slowly move toward us next hitting the town of Westport, OK killing a person in their car there then moved to Skiatook, OK and killed another person there before closing in on us. Around 9:25 our electric came back on, Dad got up put his pants on but not any shoes and didn't put his false teeth in. The wind started picking up and we could hear the storm sirens from town and we turned on the tv to KOTV channel 6 and Jim Giles showing the tornado on Doppler 6 and the track on Pathfinder 6, a first of its kind storm path tracker developed by Jim Giles and Ken Oldham and only implemented that spring.
The tornado hit at 9:38 PM. The wind really came up and my dad tried to open the front door but couldn't so we went into our middle bedroom as we did not have any type of storm shelter, closed the door and crouched down. We could hear large hail hit the roof as the wind got stronger. It sounded like a train. I looked back over my shoulder and saw the roof start to come off and the next thing I know we are being sucked out into the hall way and down through East end of the house and screened in porch. I bounced along the ground like a tumble weed but mom and dad both said they felt like the were in the air. The debris of the house went Northeast but we were somehow thrown 50 yards Southeast of where the house was. I picked myself up from the ground and could see in the lighting that the house was completely gone. All that was left was the cement slab and dad's recliner under what was left the chimney. I soon heard my dad yelling , found him and we soon found my mon pinned under a tree limb. A neighbor somehow got his S-10 Blazer out of what was left of his garage and house and found us. He loaded us up and took us to meet an ambulance. They put all three of us in the same ambulance and I was on a backboard with a collar on and and hooked to the ceiling of the ambulance. They took us to the hospital in Claremore, OK. I had a broken finger, numerous cuts, scrapes, bruises and large gash in my left leg. Mom had a broken leg with a bunch of cuts and scrapes and Dad had a bunch of cuts and scrapes. He thought he was having a heart attack in the ambulance but they decided he was hit in the chest by some debris. I was released from the hospital around 2 or 3 the next morning and taken to my sister's trailer house between Oologah and Claremore. I guess I was still in shock and I remember being scared not really knowing about mom and dad and also the main squall line was coming in. They released Dad on Sunday and mom was released on Tuesday. We lived with my sister until we healed up, settled with the insurance and bought a house in Oologah in July. So that was 6 people living in a 3 bedroom trailer for about 2 and half months. We pretty much lost everything including all 3 vehicles we owned. You know how they tell you to get in the bathtub in the event of a tornado, well we never found either of our bathtubs.
Thankfully nobody was killed in the Oologah tornado. The school was heavily damaged and classes were canceled the rest of the year so I became a senior that day. I still have no idea how we survived. When should have been killed and I have had to deal with that all my life. This was in the middle of a ten year span where weather really affected my family. My Grandma was in the Memorial Day Weekend Flood in Tulsa, OK in 1984 and I had a uncle who was in the 1993 Catoosa, OK tornado.
The April 26th 1991 Outbreak is more notably known for the highest wind speed ever recorded at the time in the Red Rock, OK Tornado, the famous video of people talking shelter under an overpass on the Kansas Turnpike, the tornado hitting McConnel Air Force base in Wichita, KS and most notably for the deaths of 13 people at the Golden Spur trailer park In Andover, KS. The tornado that hit Andover killed 17 people in total.
Another interesting twist to the Oologah Tornado, was another friend of mine that I went to school and church with, his family lost pretty much everything too and he wound up going through it all again 20 years later in the 2011 Joplin, MO Tornado. So now he has been through 2 EF-5's
I will never forget the feel, sights and sounds of that day in April 1991. And hope to never go through that again.
I was 18 and it was near the end of my junior year in high school.
I had gotten my first weather radio in January and there had been special statements for at least a week prior to the outbreak. The day of the outbreak was a HIGH risk day. At lunch that day while walking to the cafeteria from the high school the humidity was high and you feel it in the air and I mentioned to my buddy who walking with me, "feels like we are going to be rocking and rolling tonight" little did I know I would be doing it literally.
After school went home and when dad got home from work, me, mom and dad went to our church to do some work. Came home and had some navy beans, fried potatoes and cornbread for dinner. The tornado that hit us developed near Yale, OK around 7 pm at around 7:30 pm our electric went off when the tornado hit an electric substation near Yale that our rural electric cooperative used. So with no power and it starting to get dark, my dad decides to go to bed, mom sits in her recliner to wait for the electric to come back on and I go to my room to listen the weather radio and battery power radio.
The tornado continued to slowly move toward us next hitting the town of Westport, OK killing a person in their car there then moved to Skiatook, OK and killed another person there before closing in on us. Around 9:25 our electric came back on, Dad got up put his pants on but not any shoes and didn't put his false teeth in. The wind started picking up and we could hear the storm sirens from town and we turned on the tv to KOTV channel 6 and Jim Giles showing the tornado on Doppler 6 and the track on Pathfinder 6, a first of its kind storm path tracker developed by Jim Giles and Ken Oldham and only implemented that spring.
The tornado hit at 9:38 PM. The wind really came up and my dad tried to open the front door but couldn't so we went into our middle bedroom as we did not have any type of storm shelter, closed the door and crouched down. We could hear large hail hit the roof as the wind got stronger. It sounded like a train. I looked back over my shoulder and saw the roof start to come off and the next thing I know we are being sucked out into the hall way and down through East end of the house and screened in porch. I bounced along the ground like a tumble weed but mom and dad both said they felt like the were in the air. The debris of the house went Northeast but we were somehow thrown 50 yards Southeast of where the house was. I picked myself up from the ground and could see in the lighting that the house was completely gone. All that was left was the cement slab and dad's recliner under what was left the chimney. I soon heard my dad yelling , found him and we soon found my mon pinned under a tree limb. A neighbor somehow got his S-10 Blazer out of what was left of his garage and house and found us. He loaded us up and took us to meet an ambulance. They put all three of us in the same ambulance and I was on a backboard with a collar on and and hooked to the ceiling of the ambulance. They took us to the hospital in Claremore, OK. I had a broken finger, numerous cuts, scrapes, bruises and large gash in my left leg. Mom had a broken leg with a bunch of cuts and scrapes and Dad had a bunch of cuts and scrapes. He thought he was having a heart attack in the ambulance but they decided he was hit in the chest by some debris. I was released from the hospital around 2 or 3 the next morning and taken to my sister's trailer house between Oologah and Claremore. I guess I was still in shock and I remember being scared not really knowing about mom and dad and also the main squall line was coming in. They released Dad on Sunday and mom was released on Tuesday. We lived with my sister until we healed up, settled with the insurance and bought a house in Oologah in July. So that was 6 people living in a 3 bedroom trailer for about 2 and half months. We pretty much lost everything including all 3 vehicles we owned. You know how they tell you to get in the bathtub in the event of a tornado, well we never found either of our bathtubs.
Thankfully nobody was killed in the Oologah tornado. The school was heavily damaged and classes were canceled the rest of the year so I became a senior that day. I still have no idea how we survived. When should have been killed and I have had to deal with that all my life. This was in the middle of a ten year span where weather really affected my family. My Grandma was in the Memorial Day Weekend Flood in Tulsa, OK in 1984 and I had a uncle who was in the 1993 Catoosa, OK tornado.
The April 26th 1991 Outbreak is more notably known for the highest wind speed ever recorded at the time in the Red Rock, OK Tornado, the famous video of people talking shelter under an overpass on the Kansas Turnpike, the tornado hitting McConnel Air Force base in Wichita, KS and most notably for the deaths of 13 people at the Golden Spur trailer park In Andover, KS. The tornado that hit Andover killed 17 people in total.
Another interesting twist to the Oologah Tornado, was another friend of mine that I went to school and church with, his family lost pretty much everything too and he wound up going through it all again 20 years later in the 2011 Joplin, MO Tornado. So now he has been through 2 EF-5's
I will never forget the feel, sights and sounds of that day in April 1991. And hope to never go through that again.