The Tornado That Destroyed the Same City - 3 Times

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]more 1999.

[00:00:02]>> This is just this is just the worst scenario that could have happened.

[00:00:05]>> Go get safe. Oh my gosh.

[00:00:07]>> But it was only the beginning.

[00:00:09]>> About half a mile to a mile wide and the damage goes on for miles and miles.

[00:00:13]>> In 2013, a tornado struck that shouldn't have happened.

[00:00:17]>> Major major major major damage here.

[00:00:21]>> And understand they're going to start pulling these tiny victims out of the rubble here shortly. I just need to let the pictures show you the devastation, Mike, of I mean, they had no chance, Mike.

[00:00:30]>> Oh my god.

[00:00:36]>> The story of Moore didn't begin with grand speeches, but with a roar coming from the horizon.

[00:00:43]April 25th, 1893.

[00:00:46]The young town is just a few weeks old.

[00:00:48]People are settling into their new lives when suddenly the unthinkable happens.

[00:00:55]From the southwest, the town's first recorded tornado is closing in. It was a true monster, nearly 1.3 mi wide, cutting a 15-mi path across the region.

[00:01:08]With F4 intensity, the beast claimed 31 lives and left over 100 people injured.

[00:01:16]More was just beginning to rise when the sky erupted, a deafening roar, and the young town was gone.

[00:01:24]Later they would write, "The very first thing that happened to the town after its founding was its destruction." More slowly recovered, burying the memory of 1893 beneath new streets. Decades of silence created an illusion of safety, and people began to view that first strike as a horrific fluke. But the threat never went away. It was constantly lurking nearby. In 1948 and 1950, tornadoes came knocking again, striking nearby air bases in the outskirts of town. These were warning signs that no one wanted to hear. May 1960, a series of powerful F3 tornadoes struck the southern and eastern parts of Cleveland County in a single day. Then on May 19th, more itself was in the crosshairs. Over 30 homes were completely leveled and another 200 were damaged. It was a miracle that there were no mass casualties. But it was at that moment that it became clear the city of Moore was a true trap where vortices ran wild. November 1973.

[00:02:36]>> There's a circulation with this about 3 mi across and it's going to be moving it looks like onto the northeast toward the Midwest city, Dell City area. And still you folks in the Moore area should be extremely alert.

[00:02:48]>> Two tornadoes appeared within minutes of each other. The first slammed right into the heart of Moore with wind speeds reaching 175 mph.

[00:02:58]The second twister tore through the northern neighborhoods of the city and the surrounding areas of Oklahoma City.

[00:03:05]Three people lost their lives and 28 were injured. The disaster caused $17.7 million in damage in today's money. The late 20th century had brought more a rare and peaceful silence. But as the millennium drew to a close, the atmosphere was shifting to reclaim the city's dark reputation as the world's tornado capital. May 3rd, 1999.

[00:03:31]The morning seemed ordinary, but meteorologists were already watching the radar as a sinister storm system began to take shape over Oklahoma. It all started within just a few thunderstorm cells in the southwest.

[00:03:45]>> Conditions are uh pretty favorable for some explosive thunderstorm development.

[00:03:49]In fact, some that's going on right now.

[00:03:50]There's going to be a threat of severe thunderstorms, large hail, and a possibility of some tornadoes with these storms. Moist air from the Gulf of Mexico collided with scorching winds from the deserts, creating a zone of critical instability over Oklahoma and spawning massive supercells.

[00:04:07]That day, these sky monsters unleashed an incredible wave of 74 tornadoes.

[00:04:14]6:23 p.m. Grady County, 50 mi from more.

[00:04:19]>> Here we have a large tornado, easily F3, maybe F4. Long track deadly tornado. It is uh moving through northern sections extreme northern chick shade the airport area.

[00:04:28]>> One of the supercells had already spawned eight funnels before preparing for its ninth and most powerful strike.

[00:04:36]It was this cell that unleashed the giant black vortex locked directly onto the city of Moore. It began as a slender roving funnel, but within minutes Oh my god.

[00:04:47]>> Look at the stuff in the air. Oh, >> look at the stuff.

[00:04:50]>> Yeah.

[00:04:52]debris.

[00:04:55]>> It evolved into a massive mile wide wedge of darkness. It was barreling straight toward the heart of Moore. At that moment, meteorologists realized that standard warnings weren't enough.

[00:05:07]For the first time in history, they issued a special tornado emergency, and they did it live on air. 6:54 p.m.

[00:05:16]Bridge Creek, 20 minutes from more. A mobile radar recorded wind speeds of 301 mph inside the tornado. It was the highest speed ever recorded on Earth. At that moment, the tornado tore through the residential areas of Willow Creek and Southern Hills. The shredding winds stripped the asphalt right off the roads, exposing the bare earth. Where entire neighborhoods once stood, only foundations remained.

[00:05:46]21 people lost their lives, but the tornado had no intention of stopping. It was headed straight for the densely populated city of Moore, crossing Highway I44 and the Canadian River. The tornado suddenly weakened to an F2, narrowing to a/4 mile in diameter.

[00:06:04]>> It don't look like it's a mile wide anymore. It's a stove pipe. It's probably a half a mile to a/4 of a mile wide. It's still very, very strong. It looks like it's in the northeastern part of Newcastle, very near the river. But this rest bit lasted only minutes. Once it crossed the river, the tornado expanded again, surging to F4 to F5 strength. 7:08 p.m. The tornado roared into more at peak intensity, slamming directly into the Countryplace estate's neighborhood. It obliterated everything in its path. Homes and cars simply vanished before people's eyes. We are right now at Southwest 134th Street uh between May and Penn in the Country Place edition. As you can see from a little bit earlier, we arrived here at the scene about 5 minutes after the tornado ripped right through this area and continued going. 7:10 p.m. Westmore High School. Over 400 people in the auditorium celebrating the end of the school year. Suddenly, the tornado emergency alert crackles over the radio.

[00:07:10]Everyone rushes to take cover in the reinforced concrete hallways and locker rooms. Chris and his family live nearby.

[00:07:17]At first, they decided to take shelter in the bathroom, but then a neighbor suggested that they head to the school.

[00:07:24]They managed to reach the school building just in time.

[00:07:27]>> Left and went down the football fieldhouse and put football helmets on, >> hoping it would protect them from the debris. A moment later, the school was ripped apart by the tornado. In total darkness, they could hear a sound like the roar of a thousand jet engines. The school parking lot turned into a junkyard of twisted metal. Dozens of cars simply vanished while others were left mangled in the trees. Among the mangled cars, they found a dead horse.

[00:07:56]It had been carried by the wind from a farm miles away. When Chris and his family returned, they saw that their house was gone. If they had stayed in the bathroom, they definitely would not have survived. 7:15 p.m. The tornado doesn't slow down. It's zeroing in on the densely populated Chainway Avenue.

[00:08:19]Seconds remain to find cover. Soon there will be nothing left. No homes, no streets, just a flat debris strewn horizon.

[00:08:29]>> Debris in the air. We pray and plead with you. Please get down now. If you're I35, get out of your car. If you're east of I35 over to Tinker Air Force Base, please. We plead with you, go to your safe spot now. Take your radio. Forget the live pictures. Go get safe. Oh my gosh. 7:20 p.m. Approaching the I35 highway. The tornado turned everything around into total chaos. People abandoning their cars and running to find shelter. Everyone was trying to get away from the massive black cloud that was coming from behind. Cars were crashing into each other.

[00:09:08]>> Their cars just strewn over to the side.

[00:09:11]I mean, they're just twisted up. They're trying to get the they're trying to get the people out, Mike. I mean, this is just this is just the worst scenario that could have happened. I mean, they had no chance, Mike. No, there's cars down in the creek. It's just it's horrible. More than 10 people scrambled under a bridge to seek shelter and that turned out to be a fatal mistake.

[00:09:32]One woman who was hiding there with her husband and two children was sucked out and died. The wind tunnel effect turned the bridge into a death trap. 7:35 p.m.

[00:09:44]The tornado crosses the I240 and exits the city. It heads straight toward Dell City, then passes Tinker Air Force Base toward Midwest City where it dissipates around 1948. We have information from the police department that they are literally evacuating the town of Moore.

[00:10:03]They are moving people out of Moore as fast as they possibly can.

[00:10:09]>> Your mom was guilty of the bad.

[00:10:15]>> I've never been in a war zone. don't want to be, but I can't imagine the devastation being much worse than this.

[00:10:20]I mean, the entire neighborhood, as you just said, is just absolutely destroyed.

[00:10:24]Uh about half a mile to a mile wide, and the damage goes on for miles and miles.

[00:10:29]>> The tornado stayed on the ground for 85 minutes and traveled 38 m. The disaster destroyed 1,800 homes and damaged 2500.

[00:10:39]36 people died and 500 were injured. The damage was estimated at $1 billion. It was the first billiondoll tornado in US history. Between 1999 and the next major strike, the city rebuilt and lived a normal life, occasionally facing smaller disasters. However, from time to time, the residents were troubled by the question, when would the monster visit again? May 8th, 2003.

[00:11:11]Thursday, Mother's Day.

[00:11:14]Meteorologists see the perfect storm gathering over Oklahoma. Forecasters realize that the strike is inevitable.

[00:11:22]18 radio stations interrupt their broadcast simultaneously. And at 2:30 p.m., the NWS Norman issues a warning.

[00:11:31]Prepare yourselves. It's going to be tough.

[00:11:35]>> Over to Moore. Take your immediate tornado precautions. Have a possible tornado on the ground at this particular moment. and uh this the conditions are such that it's most likely going to produce a significant tornado. So, >> Mother's Day dinners were cancelled.

[00:11:48]Families stayed home and listened to the radio. When the sky to the west turned leen, hope faded. The storm would not miss them.

[00:11:58]>> Oh my god.

[00:12:00]>> At exactly 5:10 p.m., the first touchdown was reported. The tornado moved immediately north, crossed I35, and slammed into the very center of Moore at 12th Street. The wind speed had already exceeded the 200 mph mark. It was a strike to the heart of the city.

[00:12:20]Hotels, offices, a church, and a daycare were reduced to a pile of rubble and twisted metal. The Highland Park neighborhood, rebuilt just 4 years after the F5 disaster, was shaken once again.

[00:12:35]this time by F2 and F3 winds.

[00:12:38]>> So close to the route of May 3rd, 1999, a lot of homes that were rebuilt. We mentioned earlier this week that many homes ended up uh installing these safe rooms and boy on a day like today came in very handy.

[00:12:50]>> But the tornado showed its true fury after leaving the city. The General Motors plan became ground zero, recording F4 levels of destruction. The tornado then tore through Tinker Air Force base before finally dissipating near Chalkaw. The chaos lasted 28 minutes. But this time, a true miracle occurred. As the dust settled, the reality became clear. Over 300 homes were destroyed and a thousand damaged.

[00:13:22]Yet in more, not a single fatality.

[00:13:26]This was no coincidence.

[00:13:28]In the four years since 1999, many backyards had been fitted with storm shelters and safe rooms. People had only seconds to react, but they knew exactly where to go. That Mother's Day could have been a day of mourning. But instead, it became the day Moore finally learned how to beat the storm. But the storm wasn't done yet. The mysterious Moore, trapped in the path of the tornadoes, kept living on the edge. Just seven years later, keeping with the grim tradition of May, two EF4 tornadoes struck more. One of them, nearly 1.3 miles wide, plowed through 24 mi of land in half an hour. Three people died and over 80 were injured.

[00:14:16]Every spring, the sky played its own game of roulette with more. And in 2013, the wheel spun again. Monday, May 20th, 2013. The final four days before summer break, Moore was gearing up for the end of the school year and the possibility of storms, expecting high winds and hail. Nothing out of the ordinary for Oklahoma in May. Everything changed at 2 p.m. The supercell began to grow rapidly over Grady County. Please do not take this lightly. Conditions today are favorable for large, long track, potentially violent tornadoes.

[00:14:54]>> At 2:56 p.m., the tornado touched down in Newcastle east of Rockwell Avenue. It gained strength with abnormal speed, having crossed Highway 37. The wedge ballooned in size, reaching EF4 intensity.

[00:15:11]This was a twister locked onto a path straight for more. The tornado crossed the Canadian River and entered Cleveland County. It veered sharply to the east, aiming straight for densely populated neighborhoods. The vortex tore directly through the Ore family farm, obliterating the stables, horses died in their pens, trapped beneath the rubble.

[00:15:35]At 3:15 p.m., the monster tore into more, striking Brierwood Elementary School. The building was nearly leveled to the ground with intensity consistent with an EF5 tornado.

[00:15:50]9-year-old Garrett Hannon and his classmates were huddled in the school bathroom waiting for the impact. The children were terrified, sobbing in the dark.

[00:16:00]>> The tornado hit. I just let I just let everything hit me. I had a little bump in the back of my head. I'm just fine.

[00:16:07]Thanks to a miracle and the timely evacuation to safe rooms, everyone survived.

[00:16:19]>> But in the nearby residential area, the first fatalities had already been reported.

[00:16:25]By 3:16 p.m., the tornado had entered the Westmore neighborhood. The monster leveled sturdy brick homes to their foundations. It stripped the bark right off the trees and tore the asphalt from the roads. But what happened next was beyond anyone's imagination. Around 3:19 p.m., the tornado dealt a direct hit to Plaza Towers Elementary School. The building had no storm shelter. 75 students and teachers huddled in the hallways and bathrooms, desperate for cover.

[00:16:57]>> Oh my god.

[00:16:59]Oh my god.

[00:17:00]>> Oh my god.

[00:17:03]As the tornado struck the school head on, the walls began to disintegrate.

[00:17:08]>> My boat just going, "Please protect us.

[00:17:10]Please protect us. Please protect us."

[00:17:12]>> Zoe covered her head with her hands. She pressed herself into a corner. Her only hope of survival.

[00:17:19]>> I was in the corner and debris kept slipping in the side and every time I breathed it, I breathed in debris.

[00:17:25]>> Zoe remained trapped under the rubble for 30 minutes. The emergency personnel have backed out of the school. They're pulling in more vehicles. They're backing people away. And understand they're going to start pulling these tiny victims out of the rubble here shortly.

[00:17:41]>> Lance, I'm so sorry.

[00:17:42]>> As soon as it was possible, her parents rushed to the school, paralyzed by the uncertainty of whether their daughter was still alive.

[00:17:51]>> Running around screaming, looking for my baby. A lot of screaming kids, a lot of crying kids, a lot of a lot of broken heart. Tragically, seven third graders would huddled against the wall just as they were taught in safety drills. They did not survive. The wall collapsed directly on top of them.

[00:18:11]>> So, to all the parents who didn't get their children out, it's just it's devastating.

[00:18:17]>> Nine more lives were lost in the surrounding neighborhoods.

[00:18:21]At the corner of 149th Street and Western Avenue, three people perished at a 7-Eleven gas station. They had sought shelter inside the store's walk-in freezer, but the tornado struck with such violence that the heavy metal structure was crushed like a tin can.

[00:18:38]>> And three people died, including a a woman and her 3-month-old baby. They tried to take shelter in a a freezer here and and didn't make it. By 3:21 p.m., the vortex reached the Moore Medical Center. In those terrifying seconds, nurses covered patients with heavy mattresses to protect them from flying debris, while surgeons held IV drips in the darkness. Everyone who could be moved was evacuated to the ground floor away from the windows.

[00:19:10]Doctors and patients watched in horror as the tornado ripped the roof off the medical center right above their heads.

[00:19:18]Nearby, the parking lot was reduced to a heap of scrap metal. At 3:28 p.m., the tornado threw the Moore post office. The mile wide monster pulverized the building, tossing heavy mail trucks hundreds of yards away. People were trapped beneath slabs of concrete waiting to be pulled out through holes in the wreckage. Thousands of letters and packages were scattered for miles.

[00:19:45]Some people later found their bills or letters in other towns up to a 100 miles away. 3:30 p.m. After crossing Interstate 35, the monsters slammed into the Moran's bowling alley, one of the worst places to be when an EF5 hits.

[00:20:02]Staff and patrons scrambled to seek shelter in the restrooms. In mere seconds, the tornado literally wiped the building down to its foundation. As the dust settled, all that remained of the entertainment center was twisted metal and shattered bowling lanes, exposed to the open sky. After that, the tornado began to lose strength. At 3:35 p.m., it finally dissipated near Lake Stanley Draper. If you guys can see this, I I don't know how to explain it, how to describe it. This is This is terrible.

[00:20:40]This is war zone. Terrible. This school is completely gone.

[00:20:44]>> Oh my god.

[00:20:48]House next door to this completely gone.

[00:20:50]The house next door to that completely gone. And it just continues block after block here. These 39 minutes of fury felt like an eternity for more. The tornado claimed 24 lives and caused billions of dollars in damage. Yet, the people endured and rebuilt everything.

[00:21:11]Today, where there were once only ruins, new schools stand tall with reinforced storm shelters. Moore, the tornado capital, has once again demonstrated an incredible will to live.

[00:21:25]But the sky over Oklahoma is never truly at peace. In a city that has been at the epicenter of hell three times in 15 years, silence is merely a long pause. Here, no one asks, "Will the tornado come back?" They know the next supercell could be forming right now. The only question is when will it decide to strike more again?