Seven people reportedly were injured and multiple homes and other structures were damaged or destroyed Wednesday when a storm system spun up a tornado that caused damage from the northern part of Tulsa and eastward through Owasso, Verdigris and Claremore.
In north Tulsa, a church and homes were damaged, trees were down and roads were closed in the area of 46th Street North from Peoria Avenue to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. On 46th Street North near Iroquois Avenue, portions of the roof were blown off the Timothy Baptist Church, and windows were blown out.
Police and Fire department personnel canvassed an area from 49th Street North to 43rd Street North between the Tisdale Expressway and Xanthus Avenue. Tulsa Fire Urban Search and Rescue teams were searching every home in the identified damage area in the 46th Street North corridor, the city announced late Wednesday.
All of the weather-related medical calls were in the area of 45th Street North to 47th Street North, according to a news release from EMSA. Most of those who were taken by ambulance to hospitals had serious injuries, but one person was in critical condition, EMSA reported.
Most of north Tulsa was blanketed in darkness Wednesday night. Electrical lines were down and gas lines were ruptured in the area, and people were asked to stay away as public safety departments responded.
Officer Jeanne MacKenzie said that because of the darkness it was unclear how many homes had been damaged or how badly.
Nicholas Vanslyke, who lives near 46th Street North and Iroquois Avenue, said he heard tornado sirens going off about 7:15 p.m. and started taking video with his phone.
He didn’t stay out there long.
“You could see the clouds spinning in opposite directions,” he said, “so I knew something was about to happen.”
Once the rain hit and the wind started going sideways, Vanslyke got his nine dogs in the middle room of his home until the storm passed.
His house was safe, but a tree fell on his fence and ripped the power lines as it fell.
Police, firefighters, EMSA and the Red Cross set up a station at Wayman Tisdale Specialty Health Clinic, at 36th Street North and Hartford Avenue, to assist anyone looking for family members or friends, needing a ride home or needing help with other needs.
Fire Capt. Stan May said at least one home was destroyed at 46th Street North and Hartford. No one was at the home, and firefighters were unsure whether people were living there.
In Owasso’s Stone Canyon development, Matt Ritchie, 16, went to a neighbor’s storm shelter when his cellphone warned him of the approaching tornado.
“When I came out, two of my neighbors’ houses were torn down and completely flattened,” Ritchie said. “I was just amazed that my house was still there.”
He was nonetheless leaving the neighborhood to stay with a friend overnight.
“The neighborhood is just crazy right now,” he said, “and a lot is going on.”
Most of the damage in Owasso’s 3,000-acre Stone Canyon development occurred in the Twin Creeks neighborhood.
In addition to Ritchie’s neighbors’ homes, the tornado leveled two houses on Persimmon Lane near Fox Trail Road. Both were under construction and unoccupied at the time.
Owasso police officers and the Limestone Fire Department blocked traffic from coming into Stone Canyon in the 77th Street North and 177th East Avenue area while crews worked to clean debris from the streets.
Brandon Strathe, a high school senior and resident of the Stone Canyon neighborhood, said he saw the tornado strike the empty houses from his home nearby. Neighboring homes weren’t damaged, he said, but the tornado swiped the nearby Patriot Golf Club.
“It looked like it just kind of zig-zagged across the neighborhood,” Strathe said of the path. “I feel bad for these people (who lost their homes.)”
One stretch of the south portion of the Stone Canyon neighborhood off 193rd East Avenue and 66th Street North had considerable damage, with garage doors bowed out, windows blown out and blue tarps on roofs.
Local roofing companies dotted the street making temporary repairs, while neighbors offered each other help and traded stories and video.
“I was in the backyard taking pictures,” said Stone Canyon resident Luke Lau. “We went inside and got in our safe room. It was pretty fast and pretty loud. In 30 seconds, it was over.”
A play set went through his back window. His neighbor across the street lost his front door and most of the windows across the front of his house.
“It sounded like a train blowing its horn,” Lau said. “I came out when I could hear the TV (over the sound of the tornado). I went across the street because my neighbor had his front door blown off.”
Cliff Motto, director of Owasso Emergency Management, said multiple houses in the Stone Canyon area had mostly roof damage. No injuries were reported there, and crews were still assessing damage late Wednesday.
A security worker at the Patriot Golf Club at Stone Canyon said Wednesday night that the guards’ shack and a gate were damaged but that the club property itself was not hit.
It wasn’t clear Wednesday night how many homes in the Owasso area were damaged.
Bill Masterson, publisher of the Tulsa World and a resident of the Stone Canyon community, took shelter in a safe room in his garage with five other adults, two children and a dog.
“We were out watching it until we saw it dip into our neighbor’s backyard, and then we ran for cover,” he said Wednesday night.
Damage in his area was reserved to uprooted mailboxes, twisted light poles and damaged houses. A neighbor’s trampoline was swept up in the high winds and was found about a quarter- to a half-mile away.
Limestone’s fire chief told the Tulsa World authorities have also received reports of damage east of 193rd East Avenue, as well as in Claremore and Verdigris.
The storm developed near Westport in far eastern Pawnee County and went due east across the southern part of Osage County. It traveled north of Sand Springs, where it turned northeast and went south of Owasso and north of Verdigris.
From there the storm went through Claremore and weakened as it entered Mayes County, National Weather Service meteorologist Amy Jankowski said.
On the south side of Claremore, visible damage was limited to snapped utility poles and tree limbs. No major structural damage was evident in the city after dark.
Oklahoma 88 was closed south of Interstate 44 in Rogers County from about 9:30 to 10 p.m. while Oklahoma Department of Transportation workers cleared debris from the highway.
The city of Tulsa opened its Emergency Operation Center in response to the tornado that touched down in north Tulsa.
About 10:30 p.m., American Electric Power-Public Service Company of Oklahoma reported 5,800 customers without power in Tulsa County, according to a press update from the Emergency Operations Center. PSO anticipated that 4,500 customers would have power restored by midnight, with remaining outages estimated to be restored by 4 p.m. Thursday.
Three Tulsa schools — McLain, Monroe and Penn — were without power after the storm passed, and Tulsa Public Schools was working with AEP-PSO to get service restored, the school district reported.
In addition, the city’s Northside Wastewater Treatment Plant and Oxley Nature Center were without power Wednesday night, but sewer services were not affected, the city said.
