May 13, 2008 10:23 pm
—
By Wally Kennedy
wkennedy@joplinglobe.com
PICHER, Okla. — A volunteer firefighter near Welch broadcast a heads-up Saturday that bought precious minutes for residents of Picher as a killer tornado was bearing down on the town.
That same twister had begun to play out after hitting Picher, but it then merged with another, newly formed funnel not far from the Missouri line, giving birth to the mile-wide monster that entered Newton County, Mo.
First siren
The storm siren in Picher sounded at 5:20 p.m. Saturday — six minutes before the National Weather Service station at Tulsa issued a tornado warning for the area and about 19 minutes before the tornado struck.
Residents of Picher faced a choice: either hunker down in their mobile homes and wood-frame houses or get into their cars and put the twister in their rearview mirrors.
Eyewitness accounts from survivors of the tornado suggest that many Picher residents had sufficient warning to get in their cars and get out of the tornado’s path. That collective decision probably saved lives, a Fire Department spokesman said Tuesday.
But it is counter to what severe-weather experts say you should do. A vehicle is the last place you want to be when a tornado is approaching. Being in a ditch is better than being in a vehicle. For many residents of Picher, the decision to flee was a gamble that paid off.
The tornado damaged or destroyed about 160 houses in Picher. Three people died in structures. Three people died in vehicles. Had more people decided to stay put instead of flee, it is likely more people would have died, said Picher fire Capt. Tim Reeves.
“This event will get a lot of attention,” said Steve Runnels, a severe-weather expert with the National Weather Service station in Springfield, Mo. “It goes to the whole issue of what is the best thing to do.”
Squealing tires
John Mott, a longtime Picher resident, observed the exodus from Picher before the tornado hit. He said: “I did not know there was a tornado coming until I heard someone squealing their tires in front of my house. That guy had to be going 80 mph.”
Larry Lyerla, another Picher resident, looked out of his front window and saw cars racing by his house. He thought about climbing into the bathroom tub, but when he saw the massive tornado that was bearing down, he grabbed his wife and headed for their car.
“I went to the front door and saw people flying down the street in their cars,” he said. “I said: ‘Babe, we’re in trouble. Get what you got and let’s go.’”
When the Lyerlas returned to their wood-frame house, they found that it had been flattened. Their bathtub was gone.
‘Hollered back’
How did Picher get a 19-minute warning? It was because someone at Welch, a small town west of Picher, was watching the weather.
Mike Fitzpatrick, the fire chief at Welch, said: “We were having a benefit auction and dinner at the fire department when someone said there was a bad storm up northwest of Welch.
“We sent a couple of firefighters north of Welch on Highway 2. They hollered back that there was a tornado on the ground three miles west of Highway 2 and that it was going straight east toward Picher and Quapaw.
“It dropped out of the sky from nowhere is what my men told me.”
Tony Chenoweth, a volunteer firefighter at Welch who works as a police detective in Vinita, was following the firefighters in his pickup when he decided to alert Ottawa County to take cover.
“I have a radio in my pickup,” he said. “I thought it was odd there was no tornado warning out. I was under the impression if we didn’t know it, they didn’t know it either over there.”
It was that radio traffic that caused the Picher Fire Department to sound its lone siren.
Reeves, the fire captain, said: “We sounded the siren at 5:20 p.m. That was the first cycle. There were four cycles. Each cycle lasts three minutes and three seconds. We sounded the siren after we heard a Welch fireman talking about it on the radio.
“When the police spotters got out of town, they said it was on the ground and coming at us.”
Reeves said the ample warning gave people enough time to decide what was best for them to do. He said he was aware that many people got in their cars and fled from the tornado’s path.
“They had enough time to leave, and that saved some lives,” he said. “I believe that.”
Human eyes
Runnels, with the weather service, said the human eyes that saw the tornado approaching Picher are the reason “we invest so much in training storm spotters. The great majority of the time, they see something after the warnings are issued. They verify what’s going on and verify downstream what’s coming. But sometimes, they see it before we do.”
The decision by many Picher residents to flee, he said, will lead “to some conversations over what is better. Is it better being in a car or a mobile home or a ditch? The best course stated today is to get out of the vehicle and seek shelter in a ditch, but neither of those is a good solution.”
Runnels said that when a tornado watch is issued, people should be making plans in the event a warning is issued. “Finding a well-built structure or getting underground is most ideal,” he said. “If you cannot seek shelter, get in a ditch or low spot to get away from the blowing debris, which is what will kill you.
“The idea of escaping a tornado in a car does have an obvious benefit, but what do you do should your path be cut off? Being in a car is worse than being in a ditch or a low spot.”
The May 3, 1999, tornado that struck Oklahoma City is a good example of what can go wrong. When the F5 tornado struck, people got in their vehicles and got on the interstate to escape it, but they encountered a road jam when people stopped on the interstate to seek shelter under an overpass.
“Getting under an overpass is one of the worst things you could do, but when they did that, they cut off the escape for others,” Runnels said.
Two become one
Before the tornado hit Picher, it became more powerful.
“It was strengthening as it was going across Craig County,” said Steve Piltz, a severe-weather expert at the National Weather Service station in Tulsa. “It was an EF2 that became an EF3, and then right in Picher it became an EF4.”
Tornadoes are ranked on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which categorizes a tornado’s wind speed by the damage it causes. The greater the damage, the higher the ranking. An EF2 has a top wind speed of 135 mph. An EF4, the second-highest ranking, has a top wind speed of 200 mph.
The EF4 tornado that hit Picher had a wind speed of about 175 mph, Piltz said.
“But after it hit Picher, the damage drops off significantly,” he said. “It narrowed to EF1 stage and was about to dissipate when a second tornado formed and merged with the Picher tornado after it passed over Interstate 44. It became one large tornado before it plowed into Missouri.
“It was an EF4 again when it crossed the state line. It was a mile wide.”
Piltz said it is not unusual for an EF1 tornado to form parallel to the main circulation. “That’s especially true with such a violent tornado,” he said. “We don’t get many EF4s in Northeast Oklahoma.”
Photographs of the tornado that struck Picher show it had two small funnels near it, and a larger vortex next to the main tornado.
Missouri warning
The National Weather Service station at Springfield issued a tornado warning for Newton and Jasper counties at 5:35 p.m. Saturday. The tornado struck Picher at 5:39 p.m. It crossed the state line 20 minutes later, at 5:59 p.m.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.