Residents begin to 'pick up the pieces' after Seminole tornado

SEMINOLE — Cowering inside a restored gun vault, clutching her 7- and 10-year-old sons and praying for her family's lives is how Tiffani Coker found herself Wednesday night as a tornado roared overhead.

Her husband, David, and 15-year-old son Rylan, held the door to the vault shut from the inside as the damaging winds threatened to expose the family to the debris and devastation around them.

"I was just thinking, 'Hold on for dear life,'" Coker said. "Because if this door opens, all I can do is hold these two babies."

The Cokers were sheltering at The Academy of Seminole — a charter school temporarily housed in a 100-year-old armory building — when the nearly mile-wide EF2 multi-vortex tornado moved over the city of Seminole just before 7 p.m.

Seminole tornado: Residents begin cleaning up tornado damage

Multiple residents told The Oklahoman that in their recollection, a tornado had never directly hit the city, home to just over 7,000 people. Much of the city was without electricity or running water on Thursday, and the mayor announced an emergency declaration, including an order to boil water for drinking and a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew.

By 5 p.m. Thursday, there were about 3,700 Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. customers still without power, primarily in Seminole, Wewoka and Holdenville. Seminole is about 60 miles east of Oklahoma City.

The charter school, as well as the Seminole Middle School and businesses and homes throughout the small city, sustained damage.

Related: Social media shares video, images of Seminole tornado

"To see this place of safety, this place of family, to just be gone, it's quite devastating," Coker said of the charter school where she is the special education director. "We're going to pick up the pieces and move forward. But it's just hard."

How bad was the tornado that hit Seminole, Oklahoma?

Meteorologists confirmed at least two tornadoes struck in or near Seminole, Earlsboro, Cromwell, Maud and Tecumseh on Wednesday night.

Many Seminole residents left their homes Wednesday night to assess the damage to businesses but then hurried back to safety when they heard a second possible tornado was headed their way.

The tornado ended up turning north toward Cromwell, but Seminole was still hit with more heavy rain and wind.

"Right after the first wave came in, we came down, secured the back door … (which) was blown in," said Landon Johnson, who works at the downtown ServiceMaster office.

"The rain started getting harder and harder, and I was like, 'We got to get out of here.'"

Aside from damaging winds and heavy rainfall, intense lightning and flash flooding were also major concerns across Oklahoma on Wednesday. Vehicles were seen stranded in floodwaters throughout Oklahoma and Okmulgee counties, and roads were also closed in Tecumseh.

Residents clean up Seminole tornado damage

The crunch of shattered glass underfoot was met with the smell of gas leaks and the sight of debris piling up as business owners and residents began cleaning up downtown Seminole.

Brandon Streater, owner of Streater Construction and a fifth-generation Seminole resident, brought his team to help clean up after the tornado damaged his company's townhome development just east of The Academy of Seminole.

"With our development completely devastated, we have nothing better to do," Streater said. "I didn't want to leave my guys at home, so what better to do than … just tell them to come over here and clean up the community."

Streater said the townhome project is the biggest multi-family development to come to Seminole, and it was devastating to see the setback the storm caused to both the construction and the city as a whole.

"We drove through here last night … it was a really eerie feeling," Streater said. "But this morning, seeing everybody hit the ground running and cleaning up and just picking each other up … that's what this community is all about."

Help, support come from out of town

A group from Victory Family Church in Shawnee loaded up their grills and arrived at the Seminole Fire Department early Thursday to provide breakfast for first responders, some of whom had been working since midnight.

Lead Pastor Corey Webb said he knows several people who live or work in Seminole, and that he sees it as an extension of his community. Helping out was just the right thing to do, he said.

"A warm cup of coffee when there's no electricity and water right now means a lot," Webb said.

The Red Cross of Oklahoma was set up at Seminole State College, sheltering about 16 people overnight Wednesday, and CEO of the Kansas and Oklahoma region Alice Townsend said that number continued to grow.

Carl Patty was one of the residents who stayed in the shelter Wednesday night after the tornado destroyed his apartment building.

Patty was sheltering in his bathroom when the tornado went overhead, and he said he's just thankful he hasn't heard of anyone who was hurt.

"I've been telling everybody in here, don't worry about the stuff that's gone because it can all be replaced," Patty said. "The only thing that cannot be replaced is yourself and your family; everything else is optional."

Tornado hits Earlsboro school, homes

Storms Monday night left the most extensive damage in Seminole, but the neighboring town of Earlsboro also suffered a direct hit. Ranches, barns, homes and school buildings took serious damage.

Stacey Barton, principal at Earlsboro Elementary School, said the school’s baseball coach messaged him while sheltering inside the high school Wednesday night, believing that damaging and rotating clouds had hovered right over the school.

“It could have been a lot worse,” Barton said. “Our board member is about 300 yards from our school, and his house is completely destroyed.”

Power was still out at the school Thursday afternoon. A 2,000-pound air conditioning unit had been ripped out of the ceiling above the cafeteria and blown into the busing area. An uprooted tree lay beside the high school, a baseball fence and softball dugout had been blown away, and Barton was busy trying to soak up water from leak damage to the school’s new gymnasium.

Despite the repairs needed at the school, Barton knew of only one injury suffered during the storm: some bruising to a man’s ribs. No deaths had been reported, but Barton knew classes needed to be canceled Friday, as well.

“They said that the power would not be up and running yet, but we understand,” Barton said. “Seminole was hit way worse than us, so please, go take priority there. And we went ahead and made that call to let people make arrangements with their kids (Friday).”

Contributing: Staff writer Jessie Christopher Smith

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Cleanup efforts begin after Seminole tornado damage