April 2014 Moore Mission Trip
This website is to provide a daily report of some of the things we did, so that those that could not be with us can follow our progress. Please use the navigaion buttons to the left to see each days log.
This should be a great mission trip. This year we have about a dozen people from a couple of different churches. We will be staying at the McFarlin United Methodist Church in Norman, Oklahoma. This year we will be getting our direction from the Oklahoma Disaster Recovery Project. This is a collaborative effort among five nonprofit organizations. Those organizations include; the United Methodist Church, Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, and St. Vincent de Paul. This effort was created in order to provide the best service and help to those that were affected by the storms, throughout Oklahoma.
The Statistics
May 19th Tornadoes: Two tornadoes occurred that day. The first tornado struck east Edmond and traveled northeast and hit the communities of Arcadia, Luther and Carney. This tornado primarily damaged rural homes and acreages. Total number of homes destroyed was in the range of 150 with many more damaged. This tornado was rated EF-3.
The second tornado began in east Norman near lake Thunderbird and traveled through Little Axe, Newalla, Bethel Acres and Shawnee. This tornado destroyed hundreds of homes many being trailer homes and rural acreages. Two people were killed in this storm and this storm was rated an EF-4.
May 20th Newcastle-South OKC-Moore Tornado: This tornado destroyed around 4800 homes and heavily damaged thousands more. The tornado also destroyed two elementary schools one of which was Plaza Towers where 7 children were killed. The tornado also heavily damaged Highland East Junior High and heavily damaged the Moore Public Schools Administration Building. Other than homes and schools numerous commercial businesses were destroyed or heavily damaged one being Moore Medical Center which was completely destroyed. The tornado was on the ground for about 20 miles and 55 minutes. The tornado was rated an EF-5. 25 people were killed and hundreds more injured. Estimated losses are in the 2.5 billion dollar range. This storm was 1.2 miles wide at its widest and packed winds of up to 280 mph. It is also important to note that Moore has been hit by two other major tornadoes since 1999. May 3rd 1999 Moore was hit by an EF-5 and May 8th 2003 an EF-4.
May 31st tornadoes: May 31st was a day in which El Reno, South OKC and Moore were hit again.The El Reno tornado was 2.3 miles wide (widest on record) this storm destroyed hundreds of homes and also produced grapefruit sized hail. The storm then moved towards the OKC metro area where it produced 3 smaller tornadoes of which hit South OKC and Moore. The storm also produced 80+ mile per hour winds for over an hour and also dropped as much as 14 inches of rain in areas. Thousands of homes in the OKC area sustained roof, and flooding damage. This storm killed around 30 people, many of which were killed in flooding.