The Most Inclement of Weather

A fire burns in the Tower Plaza Addition in Moore, Okla., following a tornado, May 20, 2013. Credit: Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo

Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Georgia, some of the states within the United States that have been the recipients of deadly tornadoes. Where records documenting these deadly natural forces and their outcomes go back to 1902 and move from there to 1908, 1913, 1936, 1947, 1952, 2011 and on to the present, 2013, when a deadly EF5 force hit Moore, Oklahoma.

Winds were clocked up to 320 km/hr as they fuelled a destructive path through the suburb of Oklahoma City.

One of the most charming, well-known and admired stories and films ever produced in America documents the thoughts and imaginative journey of a young girl and her dog finding themselves in another world, another dimension, caused by a fictional tornado tearing through Kansas. This was the result of a talented writer transforming the horror of an indomitable natural force of destruction into a vehicle to transport a child to a world of wonder.

A good number of children were transported from life to death in this latest manifestation of the power of nature unrestrained by any human capability to fend off a natural catastrophe of unstoppable dimensions. This tornado's results has many deaths attributed to it, but not as many lost their lives as through other previous such events. Two schools in the town were completely flattened, and seven young students at the Plaza Towers Elementary School were found dead, though more are missing.

Now questions arise respecting the safety of the schools. There were no secure rooms in either school, built to withstand the force of such winds. The elementary school had a basement, and several of the children were found to have drowned there, as water entered the school. Teachers immediately covered the children with their own bodies when they realized that the dreadful roar they heard was an oncoming tornado.

Thousands of firefighters, police, paramedics and city residents frantically attempted to rescue survivors from the collapsed structures, searching through rubble left by the 30 kilometres long swath of devastation. The late start to the tornado season in Middle America this year, awaiting the right conjunction between weather systems to unleash the force of nature, might have led some people to let down their guard.

Killer twisters that destroy homes and imperil the lives of residents are not rare occurrences, however.

The ferocity of this one, though, was one of those rare, full-force tornadoes. "It was quiet in February through April; that doesn't tell us anything that will happen in May", explained Harold Brooks, research meteorologist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory. "What had happened over the last week, and for quite a while there, was a ridge in the atmosphere that stayed over the western United States, and that is a pretty unfavourable pattern for tornadoes.

"But, over the last few days, the ridge has moved east and the trough flow came over central United States. On Saturday, we got a lot of moisture that returned from Gulf of Mexico, and when you bring those ingredients together, something's going to happen."  And didn't it just. From last Wednesday's tornado strike in North Texas killing six people, to the Oklahoma twister, people in the area have a fairly good idea of what fear and devastation looks and feels like.

Hunt: On Tuesday afternoon, search and rescue teams brought cadaver dogs to the rubble to search for bodies of trapped victims