SULPHUR, Okla. – The tornadoes that hit Oklahoma on Saturday night destroyed a part of the downtown area of a town.
There were 16 reports of tornadoes across Oklahoma on Saturday. They caused a lot of damage and killed at least two people. During the bad weather, the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma, sent out 59 Tornado Warnings on Saturday. This was the most that the NWS office had ever sent out in a single signal day.
Based on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, survey teams from the NWS in Norman have found damage of at least EF-3 in Sulphur and Marietta to be true. To find out if the preliminary grade will go up or down, more research needs to be done.
In Sulphur, where a tornado did a lot of damage overnight, Gov. Kevin Stitt said at least one person had died.
Video from a drone and pictures taken on the ground show that parts of Sulphur’s West Muskogee Avenue are hard to recognize after a tornado tore through the area, destroying restaurants, art galleries, and gift shops.
“This is by far the worst damage I’ve seen since becoming governor,” Stitt said at a news conference in Sulphur on Sunday. “I saw a lot of damage. This is my sixth year traveling around the state, but what I saw in downtown Sulphur is amazing.
The owners of the clothes, home goods, and other store called Mix Mercantile woke up the morning after the storm to find their business in a terrible state. The owner, Christy Morris, sent these pictures of what she saw during the day.
The shopping and eating area looked like this before the tornado hit, as shown in Google Street Maps pictures from before Saturday.
Views from right after the storm, when it was dark, make it hard to tell what used to be a building that housed a shop or another local business.
After a weekend of bad weather from Iowa to Texas, National Weather Service storm damage survey teams are still looking at the damage in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
Officials in Oklahoma say that at least four people have died because of the bad weather.
A lot of damage was done to places in Oklahoma by the severe weather. These include Sulphur, Marietta, Ardmore, Holdenville, Mills Creek, and Dickson.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Sitt announced a state of emergency in 12 counties that were hit by bad weather.
