Tornado tales

Elliot survived the recent round of Oklahoma tornadoes unscathed, as far as we know.  Severe storms and at least five tornadoes hit Oklahoma Thursday night but none in the immediate area where Elliot is currently.  Among the hardest hit areas were the towns of Tushka and Atoka, Oklahoma, about 100 miles southeast of Elliot, where two sisters living in a mobile home were killed and dozens more were injured.  According to one news report,

[Gilbert] Wilson [emergency management director and county commissioner for Atoka County] said the tornado started four or five miles west of Tushka and traveled east, destroying homes and the school in the town about 120 miles southeast of Oklahoma City.

As many as 100 homes and businesses, including the Tushka public school, were destroyed by the storm that hit about 7:30 p.m., Wilson said.  Authorities still are trying to determine the extent of the damage.

While we're glad Elliot appears to have been unaffected by this round of tornadoes, our thoughts and prayers certainly go out to those in Oklahoma and beyond who were not as lucky.

I did a little checking and found some good advice about what to do in a tornado from the University of Oklahoma Police Department tornado safety information page.  I also discovered an online weather radio station that we can monitor the next time storms are predicted in the Oklahoma City area.  As the charts below show, Oklahoma is the hot spot of tornadoes in the U.S., and highest number of tornadoes happens in May, so we'll keep watching.