OK Death Toll Expected To Rise

A huge tornado at least a half-mile wide and with winds up to 200 miles per hour hit the town of Moore, Oklahoma, on Monday (May 20th), killing at least 91 people, including 20 children, according to the NYTimes.  The tornado leveled whole neighborhoods and flattened an elementary school in the Oklahoma City suburb.

The death toll is expected to rise, with the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office saying the number of dead could rise.

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The National Weather Service issued an initial finding that the tornado was an EF-4, the second most-powerful type. Scenes from the aftermath of the afternoon tornado saw rescuers pulling children from the destroyed Plaza Towers Elementary School and looking for others in the debris, however children from the school were among the dead. Search efforts in Moore continued overnight. President Obama declared a major disaster and ordered federal aid to help pay for recovery efforts.

The tornado loosely followed the path of a major tornado that hit the region in May 1999, and was the fourth twister to hit Moore since 1998.

The CBS-affiliated station, KWTV in Oklahoma City, had a helicopter hovering over the damage not more than 15 minutes after the tornado passed. The cameras, in some cases, beat the rescuers to the worst-hit neighborhoods, and helped viewers near and far process what had happened.. The visuals from Mr. Welsh’s helicopter, in particular, spurred national news organizations to make the tornado damage the top story on their nightly newscasts and Web sites. NBC and CBS even televised special reports shortly after the tornado dissipated.

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The NY Times reports live pictures and information, almost universally praised by viewers from afar who saw it online and on cable news channels, reminded some of the enduring value of local broadcasters at a time when apps and social networks tend to get more attention.

The reporters in Moore were supplemented by residents who posted photos and videos on those social networks. CNN at one point on Monday afternoon interviewed an eyewitness to the tornado aftermath who had published six-second videos with Vine, a relatively new app owned by Twitter. By the evening, the text message number for donations to the American Red Cross, 90999, was a nationwide trend on Twitter.

A number of national reporters, like Al Roker of NBC’s “Today” show and Sam Champion of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” were a short distance away from Moore when the tornado touched down. That’s because they had rushed to Oklahoma a day earlier, after an earlier outbreak of tornadoes elsewhere in the state.

By nightfall on Monday they were in Moore. So was Mike Bettes, a correspondent for The Weather Channel, who was among the first to arrive in Joplin after the tornado there. Reporting live on the channel on Monday, Mr. Bettes walked through what used to be a home and gestured to the kitchen, where a car laid, mangled. “I have only seen this once in my life, and that was two years ago in Joplin,” he said.

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NBC and CBS said their evening news anchors, Brian Williams and Scott Pelley, respectively, would helm their broadcasts from Oklahoma on Tuesday. The “Today” show, which was supposed to emanate from Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday morning, part of a week-long cross-country tour, scrapped that plan on Monday night and said all of its hosts would be in Moore in the morning instead.

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