OKLAHOMA CITY — As the nation’s midsection braces for another bout of severe weather, many residents in Oklahoma are still reeling from a rare combination of tornadoes and flash flooding spawned from the latest round of thunderstorms that rumbled across the state.
Conditions appeared to be ripe on Friday and Saturday for storms that could produce even more powerful tornadoes across an area covering southern Kansas, western Oklahoma and parts of North Texas, said meteorologist John Hart of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman.
Storms that spawned 51 tornadoes in several southern Plains states late Wednesday also brought torrential downpours in central Oklahoma so heavy that a 43-year-old Oklahoma City woman drowned after becoming trapped inside her underground storm cellar.
“It just flooded with her in it, and she couldn’t get out because it was like a river coming down on top of her,” said police Sgt. Gary Knight. “I don’t recall it ever raining like that before.”
Skylyna Stewart’s body was discovered in an older, underground shelter detached from the home, and Knight and other emergency management officials said such cases are extremely rare.
The 7.1 inches that fell in Oklahoma City was the third highest rainfall for any day on record, dating back to 1890, said state climatologist Gary McManus, and radar data from the southeast part of the city where Skylyna Stewart’s body was recovered indicated as much as 8 to 12 inches may have fallen.
“Part of the problem was that we had gotten a lot of rain earlier,” McManus said. “The soils were moist, and the rain had nowhere to go.”
A few miles away in Moore, Kelly Ruffin said she and her family took shelter from the storms in an underground shelter installed in their garage when water from the heavy rains began leaking in.
“It was a heavy trickle at first, and within about 10 or 15 seconds, it was gushing,” Ruffin said. “We had to decide if we were going to stay down there and drown or get out, because the sirens were going off. We decided to get out.”
Blake Lee of F5 Storm Shelters &Safe Rooms has been installing shelters in Oklahoma for nearly five years and described the drowning as a “really, really freak deal.”
“It was a flash flooding situation, and we got more rain yesterday than we typically get in a month,” Lee said. “The underground garage model, to this day I’ve never heard of anyone dying in them.”
Blake said it’s not uncommon for an underground shelter to leak, and he encouraged people who have one to check them every few months to make sure they’re not filling up with water.
“If you’ve been doing this long enough, you’re going to have shelters that leak. It can happen,” he said. “But it’s a really easy fix.”
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OKLAHOMA CITY — Communities in several southern Plains states set to work cleaning up Thursday after a night of storms that spawned 51 tornadoes, assessing the damage under sunny skies but with the threat of even worse weather on the horizon.
The storms strafed northern Texas, Nebraska and Kansas on Wednesday and early Thursday but reserved their worst for the Oklahoma City area, where at least a dozen people were injured in a trailer park and where a 43-year-old woman was killed. Skylyna Stewart apparently took cover in an underground storm shelter and drowned when it was deluged by floodwater, police Sgt. Gary Knight said.
While residents assessed the damage Thursday afternoon, a large cluster of thunderstorms was developing in western Oklahoma that was expected to bring hail and damaging winds to the state. Meanwhile, storms that could produce more powerful tornadoes could rake the Plains on Friday and Saturday, said meteorologist John Hart of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman.
“The conditions are right; it’s the right time of year,” Hart said. “There are just a lot of things that make you think over the next three days there will probably be big tornadoes across the southern Plains.”
An area covering southern Kansas, western Oklahoma and parts of North Texas would likely bear the brunt of the storms Friday and Saturday.
The likelihood of another round of storms so soon left some residents wondering whether they should wait to begin cleaning up.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency for 12 central Oklahoma counties. The hardest hit appeared to be the rural community of Bridge Creek, about 30 miles southwest of Oklahoma City, where 25 homes were destroyed.
Flooding remained a concern throughout the region, after 5-8 inches fell in many areas, said Forrest Mitchell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Norman.
The 7.1 inches that fell in Oklahoma City was the third highest rainfall for any day on record, dating back to 1890, said state climatologist Gary McManus.
Heavy damage also was reported in Norman and Oklahoma City. A hotel and mobile home park along I-35 in south Oklahoma City were heavily damaged by a rain-wrapped tornado that dropped from the sky after dark. Oklahoma City spokeswoman Kristy Yager said crews were still conducting preliminary damage assessments, but more worried about ominous storms heading toward the state.
“We’re concerned about the weather that’s coming in,” she said. “About receiving more rain tonight, Friday and Saturday. It’s important that everybody stay weather aware and have a plan.”
In Norman, a large piece of a metal roof torn from the gymnasium at Community Christian School was found wrapped around a light pole at a baseball field more than 100 yards away. Jim Ohsfeldt, whose wife is principal of the school, spent Wednesday morning with student volunteers picking up soggy insulation scattered across the parking lot.
“They say it’s going to hit again, but I think it’s going to go north or south and pick on somebody else,” Ohsfeldt said.
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