Tornado Damage Along Northwest Expressway

Thoughts and prayers go out to the folks effected by the 5 tornados that touched down in Oklahoma on Tuesday. At least 9 people were killed in Lone Grove which is about 100 miles south of OKC and I've heard that 17 counties in the state suffered damage.

I had an opportunity today to see aftermath from the Tuesday tornado that touched down just a few miles south from where I live. I interviewed two college students today for a job with the Thunder and when I called them this morning to give them an opportunity to pick a meeting location near their campus, they said Starbucks on the Northwest Expressway at Rockwell Ave. Even though it is only 5 miles from me, I had never been through that intersection before but knew from watching the news that it was the location of some damaged buildings so I took my camera with me and snapped pictures.

It is mind boggling to see how random the damage is. Northwest Expressway runs east/west and the two most damaged buildings that I saw were on opposite sides of the street and most of the other buildings surrounding them were not even touched.

Chuck E. Cheese's pizza on the south side of the expressway had the most damage. I included two pictures from the building (top of the blog) and is shut down. Quite a bit of damage to the back of the building but fortunately no one was injured. Also took a picture of what was left of the sign for the restaurant and the picture next to it is what is left of the sign for the Italian resaurant that is next door.

The picures below are of a building that has a handful of businesses (Fantastic Sam's, Cricket, Dental Office, one or two others). This complex is on the south side of the street so I am assuming that it was hit before the tornado crossed the street and hit Chuck E Cheese's. This building has a fence going around it and looks as though it suffered quite a bit of damage to the roof. I did see a woman coming out of this building from what looked like a door near the dental offfice entrance however the businesses were not open. The strange thing was that I had lunch at the Chick Fil A right next door which was not damaged and didn't even notice this building until walking back to my car after eating.