OK OK - Alexis Johnson, 5 mos, Oklahoma City, 31 May 2013

5 died when Oklahoma family fled to drainage tunnel to escape tornadoes . (Daily Oklahoman)

Frightened by a TV meteorologist’s warning to get underground, Virginia Shrum fled with her family and a friend to a long drainage tunnel behind their Oklahoma City apartment on May 31 to escape an approaching tornado.

It became a death trap.

In all, 11 people from the apartment sought shelter in the concrete tunnel, which starts at SW 15 just west of Interstate 44 and ends a quarter-mile away at the Oklahoma River.

Five died.

Four of the dead were children, ages 4 and younger. The body of one — a baby girl — has not been recovered.
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Before fleeing the apartment, there were arguments about what to do. Timothy Shrum urged going to the drainage tunnel.

Alvin Hennington said, “I kept telling him, ‘No. No. No. Let’s go into the closet. … I don’t trust that.’”
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“I had a bad feeling from the beginning. I didn’t pay attention to what I was feeling and we went down there anyway,” Virginia Shrum said.
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Much more, including interviews with the survivors and a video, at the link.

This is the same meteorologist, incidentally, who told viewers to get in their cars and go south during this same tornado front. Didn't work out so well. Traffic jammed; people died.

I think there were more than this that tried to hide in storm drains during the recent tornados. I read about a family of 7 from Guatemala that died and another Oklahoma-raised family who died except their tiny baby was rescued out of the N. Canadian and saved.

Did you hear about Ninnekah's tornado shelter for it's schools? They couldn't afford the $300,000 shelters for sale, so some wise locals hired a backhoe to dig a huge hole, put a trailer in it with construction bricks surrounding it, and poured a concrete slab on the top. According to local gossip, this apparently meets inspection for an underground shelter and it cost approx. $33,000. I really hope that the Bridgecreek schools and Moore schools will do the same. Although the news said Moore had been hit by 3 huge tornados in the past century, it was actually FOUR. In 1955 or 1956, a tornado came through Moore (which was only farmland/sparse businesses at that time like the west side of I-35 in Moore is now) and traveled up to Tinker. It trashed a lot of aircraft and hangers at Tinker.

wfgodot said:

This is the same meteorologist, incidentally, who told viewers to get in their cars and go south during this same tornado front. Didn't work out so well. Traffic jammed; people died.

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Hopefully this is the same meterologist who will find another line of work.

wfgodot said:

This is the same meteorologist, incidentally, who told viewers to get in their cars and go south during this same tornado front. Didn't work out so well. Traffic jammed; people died.

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Wow I wondered why so many people got in their cars and fleed. The storm chasers reporting on CNN said it was odd and super dangerous. Definitely did not know it was due to the direction of a metrologist!


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Yannow, when I lived out in the boonies in a southern tornado alley, the weather folks were always saying people should abandon vehicles and "unsafe structures" and dive in a ditch. And each time I would respond (yes to the tv), "The hell you say!" I'd look across my yard at the snake-infested gully that ran alongside the highway and think no way in the world would I dive in it, much less let my child dive in it. That ditch would become a river in no time flat in hard rain. That was about the last place I would want to "take cover."

Telling people to get into an underground shelter is a standard advice during a tornado. To get into a car and flee isn't.
"An award-winning Oklahoma television meteorologist has been criticized as "irresponsible" for telling viewers on Friday to get in their cars and flee approaching tornadoes, and some are blaming him for putting people in grave danger on clogged roads."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...rnado-warning-article-1.1364792#ixzz2WHNbU4BV

Heartbreaking.

Looks like they never found this poor baby.

NamUs: https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/20529

Poor sweet baby. So tragic.


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Charley Project



Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance
• Missing Since: May 31, 2013 from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
• Classification: Lost/Injured Missing
• Age: 5 months old
• Height and Weight: 1'11, 10 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Alexis has a Mongolian spot, a birthmark that usually disappears by age five, on her buttock.
• Clothing/Jewelry Description: A onesie.

Details of Disappearance
Alexis was last seen in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on May 31, 2013. That day, she and ten other individuals hid in a drainage tunnel behind their apartment building, seeking shelter from a tornado. The tunnel flooded and five people died, four of them children under the age of four. Alexis's body was the only one that was not recovered. It was presumed swept away in the flood.