Moore Tornado Officially Rated EF5

The NWS office in Norman sent a survey team out to look at the damage that happened in Moore yesterday, and they concluded the same thing everyone has assumed since damage pictures began to come in to local media outlets: The Moore tornado was an EF5, the first and likely only EF5 tornado of the year. If there's any good news, the death toll went down greatly, from 51 to 24, which includes 9 kids found in Plaza Towers Elementary School. From NWS Norman:



You've seen the video and images already, and if you want to help, there are ways you can. The city of Moore has already started turning away volunteers because they've got enough, but many places in the OKC area, and even well outside of OKC, are taking donations of food, water, and clothing. You can donate $10 to the Red Cross at redcross.org, or text REDCROSS to 90999.

If you've been listening to the national media, at some point, you've probably heard them say that there was no warning, which is about as far from the truth as you could be. The Tornado Warning went out 16 minutes before there even was a tornado on the ground, and 30 minutes before it actually hit Moore. The Tornado Emergency went out at 3:00 and reiterated it at least two other times as the tornado hovered over the city of Moore.

And if you're the religious type, pray for the people of Moore. Keep the superintendent of the Moore schools in your thoughts too, because if what happened after the Enterprise, Alabama EF4 in 2007 happens again, the national media will go down to Moore, humiliate him for not letting school out early for the rest of the week, and leave with a "good" story, and his nerves, even if his house wasn't hit (I'm not sure if it was) will be as frayed as everyone else's down there.