A week after a tornado, Idabel will host a playoff game. It'll about more than football.

Scott Pratt knew things were bad in Idabel when he saw the storage shed.

It held the high school football team’s tackling dummies and the lawnmowers used around the football stadium. But last Friday night when Pratt and his football team arrived home after a game in Eufaula, they could plainly see that metal shed wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

“It’s upside down in a tree,” Pratt said.

While the football team played, a tornado tore through the south and east sides of Idabel.

News of the storm reached the coaches and players, the families and fans at the game in Eufaula. But until the football team’s bus pulled into the parking lot of the school, no one knew the extent of the damage.

“Our kids didn’t see the destruction until that shed,” Pratt said.

“It was eye opening.”

Clean up is well under way in the McCurtain County town nestled near the southeastern tip of the state. But with dozens of homes and businesses destroyed and many more damaged, returning to normal will take time.

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Still, Friday night will offer a few hours of normal in Idabel.

There’s a high school football game to be played.

Pratt and his football team will host a first-round playoff game. Doing so was a season-long goal for the Class 2A Warriors; they wanted a playoff game in their new multi-million dollar stadium that opened earlier this season.

But now, the game has become something more.

“I think it’s really just going to be electric,” Idabel superintendent Doug Brown said.

Pratt said, “This is a release for people to come watch these kids play.”

In Idabel, the Friday night lights will never have looked more inviting.

What a difference a week makes.

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'It was pretty harrowing'

Idabel’s bus was less than an hour into the 2 1/2-hour drive to Eufaula when tornado warnings started popping up around the area.

Pratt and his coaches were monitoring the weather, and they decided to stop in Hugo before making the turn north on Indian Nation Turnpike. They didn’t want to drive into a storm and endanger the team.

They waited 45 minutes before continuing on to Eufaula.

“Myself, I drove through three different tornado warnings on my way,” Brown said. “It was pretty harrowing to try to drive through that kind of weather.”

Then as kickoff approached, thunderstorms rolled into Eufaula and delayed the start of the game almost an hour.

Pratt and Brown hoped the worst of the weather was behind them once the game started.

News began to percolate through the stands just before halftime Friday night that a tornado had gone through Idabel. Pratt was told in the locker room at halftime, and players were getting word from family.

Quarterback Waylon Phillips saw his mom near the field at one point and went to her. Even though a fence separated them, they hugged over it.

Lots of parents consoled their kids. Encouraged them, too. Nothing could be done in that moment to change or fix anything back home. Even though they’d already sewn up a home playoff game, a district championship was on the line. Try to focus on the task at hand, then worry about the storm later.

That proved difficult.

“Their emotions were high,” Brown said.

Idabel took a 21-17 lead early in the fourth quarter after a touchdown and two-point conversion, but then Eufaula put together an 86-yard drive that lasted more than 10 minutes and ended with the go-ahead and game-winning touchdown.

Losing was a tough pill for Idabel to swallow ― and going home wasn’t going to be much easier.

No one knew what kind of destruction they’d find.

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'It took a step back'

Before the players got off the bus, Pratt told them to let the coaches know how things were once they got home.

Did they have damage?

Did they need help?

Pratt knew his house was still standing ― his brother had gone and checked on it ― but still, there was some damage to the outside. And all around the house, there were downed limbs and damaged trees.

Idabel sits in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains, so trees are abundant. Fallen trees caused extensive damage all around town, which reminded Pratt a bit of what he saw after a massive ice storm hit the Oklahoma City area a couple years back.

“Magnify that by a thousand,” he said of the scene in Idabel.

He lives in a neighborhood with massive pine trees.

“One of the players lives next door,” he said, “and they got a tree on their house.

“Just getting into my neighborhood now is a chore.”

This past weekend was spent moving and clearing enough debris so crews could get in and start work on everything from electricity to home repairs. Pratt saw all sorts of people offering help. Some were from Idabel. Some were not.

But whatever anyone needed ― food, water, clothes, somewhere to shower or catch a few hours of sleep ― someone could help.

Pratt didn’t meet with his team until Sunday afternoon. That’s when they normally meet, but by then, he’s usually watched hours of film.

That didn’t happen this past weekend.

“It took a step back,” Pratt said of football.

But on Friday night, it will be front and center again.

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'Whatever we can do to help heal'

Recovery and repair in Idabel continues. It will continue for a while. There are even groups of students from the high school going out into more rural parts of the county to help farmers with their clean up.

The National Weather Service says the long-track tornado was on the ground for nearly 60 miles, and at its worst, it was an EF-4 with estimated maximum winds of 170 mph. Even though the tornado wasn’t quite that strong when it reached Idabel, people still marvel no one in town suffered any major injuries.

“I think I had a report that the EMTs didn’t respond to one phone call after the storm,” Brown, the superintendent, said. “So, it was a miracle.”

Pratt said, “I do believe the good Lord was looking out for us. There were quite a few people at the game (in Eufaula) that could have been in those houses, on those roads.”

Pratt knows this isn’t a normal week for his football team. Thoughts will wander. Attention will wane.

He understands; he had to take time Tuesday to meet an insurance adjuster at his house and had to make sure a few repairs were made at the football stadium. A chain link fence got blown over, the press box had some cosmetic damage and that shed had to be pulled down from the tree.

Still, Pratt senses the players and coaches locking in when they get to the field.

“When it’s time to practice and focus on football,” Pratt said, “they focus on football.”

The Warriors know, after all, the opportunity they have in front of them. Yes, they want to beat Warner, their opponent Friday night. Sure, they want to get the program’s first playoff win since 2018.

But they know simply playing Friday night is important. It will be a sign of resilience. It will be a time of release.

“We’re gonna have a packed house,” Pratt said.

“Whatever we can do to help heal … is what we would like to do.”

Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma high school football: Idabel hosts playoffs one week after tornado