waltky
Wise ol' monkey
Tornadoes and flooding claim 12 lives...
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12 dead in aftermath of tornadoes, floods
2 June`13 > The death toll has jumped to 12 in the aftermath of a swarm of destructive twisters that tore through the Midwest, killing seven adults and two children in Oklahoma and causing three deaths in Missouri blamed on flooding.
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Storm chaser caught in tornado: It felt like I was going to heaven
2 June `13 > When Mike Bettes was chasing a tornado in Oklahoma Friday, the twister was hot on the heels of his SUV. He realized he wasn't going to make it as his truck was lifted up into the air. “It really felt like at that moment I was going to heaven," he said Sunday on TODAY.
12 dead in aftermath of tornadoes, floods
2 June`13 > The death toll has jumped to 12 in the aftermath of a swarm of destructive twisters that tore through the Midwest, killing seven adults and two children in Oklahoma and causing three deaths in Missouri blamed on flooding.
Floodwaters also proved deadly in Oklahoma, where a 4-year-old girl died after she was swept away while taking shelter with her family in a ditch, according to police. It is unclear whether the girl is one of the nine people who died as five tornadoes — one a half-mile wide — struck the Oklahoma City area Friday evening, terrorizing communities already battered by deadly storms this spring. The Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner told NBC News seven adults and two children are confirmed dead, including a mother and her small child.
The medical examiner said that five of the nine dead had been positively identified and called on the public's help to identify the others. "If someone is missing a loved one from last night’s tornado, we would encourage them to contact our office at 405-239-7141," said Amy Elliott, of the medical examiner's office. Hospitals in Oklahoma City reported 104 injuries, including five critical patients. At least five people killed were in vehicles and may have been trying to flee as dark clouds gathered and warning sirens wailed, authorities said.
Marcus Jolly, 32, of El Reno told The Oklahoman newspaper the scene along Interstate 40 "was a war zone. There were semis turned over and skeletons of buildings remaining.” The twisters came just 11 days after a monster tornado left 24 dead in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, where power outages were reported Friday. Mark Wiley, meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s southern region headquarters in Fort Worth, said early Saturday that there had been five confirmed tornadoes in the Oklahoma City area on Friday and one in the Tulsa area early Saturday.
A total of 12 tornadoes hit Missouri and Illinois around St. Louis, where “numerous homes” were damaged. Wiley did not have any information about casualties there. Two twisters touched down briefly in North Dakota, but did not do any damage. The Oklahoma City area “definitely” experienced the worst of the bad weather, Wiley said, with wind gusts of up to 90 mph, baseball-sized hail and extensive flooding.
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See also:
Storm chaser caught in tornado: It felt like I was going to heaven
2 June `13 > When Mike Bettes was chasing a tornado in Oklahoma Friday, the twister was hot on the heels of his SUV. He realized he wasn't going to make it as his truck was lifted up into the air. “It really felt like at that moment I was going to heaven," he said Sunday on TODAY.
Bettes is an experienced meteorologist with The Weather Channel, but his credentials were no match for the ferocity of the storm. The truck, which was carrying Bettes and two others, tumbled as it was picked up by the winds. "As soon as I felt the vehicle tumble, I knew we were in trouble,” Bettes said. In that moment, he thought of his family. “I just saw my wife's face and I thought, you know, that's my life, I don't want to give that up just yet.” The crew had ended up on the wrong side of the tornado that day. They’d gotten caught on the north side, which is typically the side that has a lot of rain, wind and hail. Had they been thirty seconds faster, Bettes guessed, they would've made it to the safer side of the tornado in time and been able to observe it without danger.
The entire crew made it out alive, albeit with a few bumps, scratches and shaken nerves. One producer is in the hospital with broken bones. Many people weren't as lucky as Bettes. The tornadoes that raged through the Midwest Friday killed eight adults and two children in Oklahoma and caused three deaths in Missouri due to the floods. Among those who died in the storms were three storm chasers who had done work with The Weather Channel. Father and son team Tim and Paul Samaras, as well as fellow crew member Carl Young, were killed as a result of a twister in El Reno, Okla., a town hit especially hard by the storms. “When I saw our lead vehicle get pulled off the road and into a ditch that was the moment I realized we were not going to get past it,” Bettes told TODAY’s Lester Holt on Weekend TODAY.
Though all three of the convoy’s vehicles ran into trouble, it was Bettes' truck that saw the most damage, flying 200 yards across a field and landing with its body smashed and the airbags deployed. “You could hear Mike basically yelling into the radio, ‘Faster, faster, faster!,’” said J.K. Kautz, one of the crew members, who was able to listen in to Bettes as he tried to shout directions to his crew. Kevin Parrish, another crew member, added, “The last thing that I remember is looking over my left shoulder and seeing the Bettes' mobile pass me and go airborne.” Despite the harrowing ordeal, Bettes said he and other tornado chasers provide a valuable service. “Storm spotters can give that advance warning that you wouldn't otherwise get,” he said, though he admitted storm chasing has become more extreme and there's a lesson to be learned in his experience. “Safety comes first. There’s always another tornado to chase.”
http://www.newsforum.com/breaking-n...nado-felt-like-i-going-heaven.html#post166122
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