The Mercy of the Sky: The Story of a Tornado

by Holly Bailey

  • • •

  A few blocks to the south, off Broadway and SW Fourth, the tornado was grinding through a residential neighborhood where Barbara Garcia, a seventy-four-year-old grandmother, was taking shelter inside a tiny bathroom in the house where she’d lived for forty-five years. She didn’t have a storm cellar, and she went to the only place of safety she knew, the place Oklahomans had been told for decades was a suitable shelter—until the May 3 tornado had changed everything. But she had no choice. It was the bathroom or nothing, and she put the seat down on the toilet and sat there clutching Bowser, her tiny black schnauzer, who was her most beloved companion.

  A few minutes later she heard the storm approach. There was a horrifying howl of wind and the sound of snapping boards, and before she knew it, it was on her. The tiny bathroom blew to bits, and sitting on the stool she felt herself spinning and tumbling around. She lost her grip on Bowser, and after a few more minutes of being shaken and stirred around, she came to a dead stop. She was buried in debris but very much alive. But she didn’t see her dog. As she climbed out of her house with the help of neighbors, Garcia stared back at her demolished home. All of her belongings were destroyed, splayed out under the ugly sky. But none of that mattered. All she wanted was her dog. Bowser had to be in there somewhere.

  • • •

  Down Interstate 35, Glenn Lewis, Moore’s mayor, had emerged from the vault at his jewelry store and run outside. Debris was still raining from the sky, but the buildings within his sight line appeared to be standing. He knew this was not the case a mile to the north and west, where he’d watched the storm eat away at residential neighborhoods before he’d been forced to take shelter himself. Lewis knew he had to get over there, and even as he could still see the tornado hovering in the distance, now grinding through the east side of Moore, he took off running across the parking lot. Two blocks away was Moore’s main fire station and dispatch center, and he ran up just as a deputy he knew was about to roll out of the parking lot to the scene. He asked if he could hitch a ride.

  As they drove together up Telephone Road toward Nineteenth Street, Lewis could see massive chunks of debris blocking the road about a mile ahead, near the Warren Theatre—pieces of houses and utility poles and wrecked cars in the middle of the road. It reminded him of the other storms that had hit Moore. The sad thing about tornadoes, he had come to realize now that he’d been through four of them—or rather, five, he suddenly realized—was that the devastation looked remarkably the same.

  Turning west on Nineteenth Street, Lewis was relieved to see that most of the retail stores along the road, including Target and the new shopping centers, were largely unscathed. But glancing to the north, he could see a neighborhood that looked like it had been bombed. He began to have a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. In the driver’s seat the fire deputy instructed him to lift his feet off the truck’s floorboard and to cross his arms over his chest. He wasn’t wearing rubber-soled shoes, and the officer was about to start driving over downed electric wires that lay strewn over the road. Lewis did as instructed, and he heard a charged buzz as the vehicle surged forward and made a right turn on Eagle Drive.

  It was destruction as far as the eye could see. Homes were wiped clean of their slabs, trees despoiled of their branches and limbs. The grass, he noticed, had been sucked out of the ground. People were climbing out of the wreckage of their homes and stumbling around stunned, and there was that familiar smell in the air—one he recognized from previous tornadoes—a mix of gas and lumber and wet earth. He hated that smell. Lewis felt horrible, but he knew his city would get through it. They’d been through it so many times before. He thought of his desk at City Hall, where there was already a signed declaration of emergency, standing by just in case. All someone had to do was date it.

  As prepared as he was for disaster, Lewis felt the air sucked out of his chest as they came around the bend. Ahead he saw what looked to be the remains of an elementary school, crushed and torn apart. Its playground equipment was mangled beyond recognition. People around the neighborhood had climbed out of the rubble of their own homes and were rushing toward the demolished building holding crowbars and other equipment. As they drew alongside the remains of the school, Lewis jumped out of the car and began running. There were still papers flying in the air, as if the whole building had only just exploded. He saw report cards and construction paper with rudimentary drawings. At his feet a sheet of wide-lined handwriting paper fell, the kind used in kindergarten when kids are first learning to write. On it a child had carefully drawn his ABCs, and there was a red star at the top and, in red pen, a hand-drawn smiley face. Lewis suddenly felt sick to his stomach.

  Near the front of the building he could just barely make out the words on the red and black sign, which had been twisted and mangled by the tornado. “Plaza Towers Elementary,” it read.

  CHAPTER 18

  3:27 P.M., MAY 20

  Amy Simpson stared up at the blue sky above her head, where the roof of her tiny office bathroom used to be. It was such a strange sight after what they’d just been though—a deep blue sky peeking through scattered clouds. She could see only a tiny square of it, but it seemed so calm and perfect compared with the furious mayhem she’d seen overhead only a few minutes before. It was almost like a mirage. In the distance she could still faintly hear the roar of the tornado, but the school no longer seemed to be in danger. Simpson had no idea what was on the other side of that bathroom door, but she knew she needed to get out there and fast. The kids at Plaza Towers needed her.

  To get out would not be easy. An air duct had fallen into the bathroom, and a pipe had collapsed across the doorway. Insulation and rocks were piled in what little space there was between her and the four other women sardined into her miniscule bathroom. The door opened inward, and the women would have to contort themselves around the debris to allow Simpson to step out. All five were covered in dirt and muck, but miraculously they were fine. Still, her colleagues were terrified. They were screaming and crying, overcome by what had just happened. But Simpson was strangely calm, as if someone had flipped a switch and put her on autopilot, temporarily taking away all her emotions and her fears. There was no time for tears. She had to be strong for her students and her staff. She was in charge. No one else could do this job for her, and she wouldn’t have dared to ask. It was not in her to depend on someone else. It was not how she had been raised.

  She slowly stood up and began moving debris so that she could try to get out of the room. The women around her continued to cry and shake as they shuffled around so that she could get the door open. When she finally did, Simpson took one step out and found herself at eye level with the bumper of an overturned car that had been picked up and thrown into the front office. It was sitting on Penny’s desk like a stapler or some other benign office tool. Simpson had almost no reaction except to wonder how she might maneuver around it. She studied it for a second, considering her options.

  Behind her Simpson could hear her colleagues weeping. “I can’t do this,” one said in a choked voice. “I can’t get out. I can’t do this.” Simpson knew they weren’t stuck physically but that they weren’t ready to face the full scope of destruction, which even she hadn’t fully gauged yet. Still staring at the bumper of the car, she turned her head ever so slightly and called to the women behind her in a voice so casual it sounded as if she were making random small talk. “Okay,” she told them matter-of-factly. “When you come out, there’s a car here.” One of the women screamed, but Simpson didn’t miss a beat. Her voice had no touch of panic or shock. It was just her talking to her staff, as if everything were absolutely normal. “When you come out, you can step on Toree’s desk,” she continued, referring to the school secretary, whose work space had been wiped clean by the storm. She had no instructions for what to do next. She couldn’t see what was beyond the car.

  Simpson climbed up on her secretary’s desk. The roof of the s
chool was gone, and many of the walls were missing. Looking out, she saw a world she didn’t recognize. The neighborhood was completely obliterated. In every direction was massive destruction unlike anything she had ever seen in her life. Houses were demolished. Trees had been reduced to jagged stumps. Even the grass was gone. In the parking lot cars had been picked up and tossed around, flattened like pancakes. She could see her Chevy Tahoe in the north parking lot, its windows blown out and smashed beyond repair. Simpson couldn’t believe what she was seeing, but she had no time to try to comprehend it. She didn’t even have time to react. She needed to get down and find her way out of the front office and survey the rest of the school.

  It was at this point she realized for the first time how poorly dressed she was for a tornado. Her open-toed sandals with their tiny heels were slick and dangerous as she began to climb over the mountain of debris that had accumulated in her office. There were boards and bricks and pieces of chewed-up furniture and everything else mashed up together in a giant pile that was several feet high. She reached the top but was uncertain how to get down without injuring herself.

  As she stood there assessing her exit strategy, her cell phone suddenly rang. It was her mother, who was frantic. Simpson realized only later that God himself had probably patched her through, given her mother’s history with tornadoes and how haunted she still was from the twister she had survived as a child. She had been watching the tornado on television and was terrified that her daughter had been killed. Now she at least knew she was alive, but there was no time for joy. Simpson was all business. She didn’t have time to be anyone’s daughter—not at that moment. She had a job to do. “The entire school and neighborhood is gone,” she told her mother. “Call 9-1-1.” It was one of the few moments that betrayed the actual shock she was in. Scores of rescue workers from all over the region were racing toward Plaza Towers, and in her right mind, Simpson would have known that. But in that moment, she felt like she was completely on her own. As she hung up on her mother, Simpson dialed her husband, Lindy, an off-duty Edmond firefighter who was at their house a little over a mile away. Surprisingly, the call went through, and he answered on the first ring. “The school’s gone,” she said in a dull voice. “Come and get me right now.”

  Putting her phone away, Simpson looked around her and saw people racing from their damaged homes toward the school. She knew she could not get off the pile without help, and she began waving her arms, hoping to get someone’s attention. Suddenly it all felt like a movie, one of those scenes she’d seen countless times featuring a damsel in distress frantically waving her arms and calling out for help. It all seemed so unreal. It was a bad movie, a nightmare that didn’t seem true. A man she didn’t recognize dashed over, grabbed her, and helped her down to the ground. He ran away before she could even thank him.

  Walking toward what used to be the school’s front hallway, she saw dazed and crying kids climbing out of the rubble, and she rushed to help them. There, to her horror, she turned and saw an overturned SUV in the middle of the hallway and beneath it Linda Patterson, a pre-K teacher who was alive but in obvious pain. On the other side of the car, out of Simpson’s line of sight, was Jennifer Simonds, one of the kindergarten teachers. Several men rushed past her and gingerly lifted up the car to free the women. As she watched, Simpson was stunned to see kids scramble out from beneath the teachers—a little roughed up but generally okay. The teachers had literally taken on the weight of a car to save the students.

  Simpson quickly moved toward the wrecked front of the building and began to direct kids out of the rubble and toward the school’s parking lot—putting as much distance as possible between them and the rubble, which seemed at risk of further collapse.

  Suddenly the tornado sirens began to wail again. She glanced to the west in fear. She could see rain coming, but she had no idea what else lurked in the clouds. The sirens were wailing to alert residents on the east side of Moore that the tornado was still on the ground, but Simpson did not know that. She frantically surveyed the landscape, wondering where people could take cover.

  Erin Baxter, the kindergarten teacher, emerged and together she and Simpson began trying to wrangle the young prekindergarten and kindergarten students, who were crying and scared and chattering to one another. But she found she could barely talk loud enough to get the kids’ attention. “Hey!” she heard a voice yell from behind her. She turned to see her husband, Lindy. He had been at the school for several minutes helping to evacuate fourth, fifth, and sixth graders from the east side of the building. It was the first time Simpson had seen him, but she had no time to react. As the sirens continued to wail, she quickly directed kids and teachers to the only place she thought would offer shelter—an empty creek bed that ran along the west side of the school property. But when they reached it, they discovered the creek, about five feet deep and usually dry as a bone, was full of rushing water. Her teachers began to look panicked, but Simpson blocked out the worry, quickly trying to think of another place to go. Suddenly the sirens stopped.

  Rushing back to the ruins of the school, Simpson was outwardly calm, but her mind was racing, thinking of everything she needed to do. Her responsibility was to get her kids out of this terrible scene and back to their parents. But who knew what had happened beyond these few blocks? Were their parents even alive? Her mind was in overdrive. There was so much to do, so much to comprehend. She just had to keep going.

  Behind her Simpson heard a voice. “Amy,” her husband said gently. She turned and there he stood, the love of her life, the father of her children. They had been together fourteen years, married for almost thirteen—though it felt as if they’d known each other forever. While she was three years older, she and Lindy had danced around each other’s lives for years before they’d ever met. They’d both grown up in Moore and had many of the same friends, who had tried to set them up again and again, but they both refused. It wasn’t until a chance meeting at a football game that they had realized they were soul mates. They’d married ten months later and had barely spent a day apart since then. There was no one who knew her better, no one she was more comfortable around, no one she trusted more. After the tornado had passed, he had already been in his truck racing toward the school when she called. Hearing the anguish in her voice, he’d pressed the gas pedal, ignoring the speed limit and figuring the cops had more to worry about than traffic violations. He had raced through intersections where the traffic lights were out. The debris-covered roads had become an obstacle course, and he had raced his truck up on sidewalks and through front yards, dodging poles and uprooted trees. He even took out a mailbox—anything to get to her. Now he pulled her into a hug and held her tight. But as he took a step back to study her face, his blue eyes marked with concern for his wife, Simpson found she could barely speak. “I haven’t seen my second or third graders,” she said, the words croaking out of her throat. “Where are they?” Lindy asked. “Go to that tree,” she said, pointing to a jagged piece of bark stripped of its leaves and limbs. “And turn east.”

  • • •

  A few miles east of Plaza, the tornado was still on the ground, dancing back and forth along Fourth Street. It began to veer unpredictably from the north side of the street to the south. On the ground storm chasers watched as the tornado appeared to grow small and then widened again as it moved toward the east, but on radar the winds never weakened, and it continued to demolish everything in its path. It slammed into a residential neighborhood, where it killed two more people: William Sass, sixty-three, who had no known family in the area, and Jeany Neely, a thirty-eight-year-old nurse and single mom who was killed while sheltering in the family closet with her oldest son, Jacob, who survived.

  A few blocks away the tornado was headed straight for Highland East Junior High when suddenly it inched a little to the south—missing the main school building but completely wiping out the gym, which had been evacuated not long before. A few more blocks to the ea
st it made a direct hit on the administration building of Moore Public Schools, where Romines worked. The building, a former hospital, was destroyed, but miraculously, the dozens of staff members inside all survived.

  • • •

  On television KOCO’s Damon Lane was trying to remain calm, but it was getting harder and harder. The station’s radar could drill down to the very block to see where the storm was headed, and he was convinced his house, where his wife was in the shelter, was about to be wiped out. Standing in front of the radar map, he again began to tick through all the neighborhoods in danger—Heatherwood, Rock Creek, and the Creeks at Wimberley, where he lived. He tossed the program over to Chris Lee, a storm chaser who was a quarter mile ahead of the storm, which showed no signs of letting up. Lane wasn’t on camera, but his microphone was still on when he exchanged looks with the meteorologists on staff and said flatly, “It’s going to hit my house.”

  CHAPTER 19

  3:30 P.M., MAY 20

  Time moves slowly when you think you are about to die. Seconds become minutes; minutes become like hours. A single moment, once so fleeting, suddenly feels like an eternity.

  Buried under the rubble of what used to be the hallway outside her third-grade classroom at Plaza Towers Elementary, Jennifer Doan found every passing minute more agonizing than the last. She couldn’t move, and she could barely breathe. All she wanted to do was wipe her face free of the dust and debris that covered her eyes and mouth, but with the exception of being able to wiggle her left arm a tiny bit, she was completely incapacitated, pinned underneath what seemed to be a mountain of rocks and steel in absolute darkness.