Karsceal Turner- Special to West Orlando News Online
People speak of the awesomeness of the movie “Twister.” For me, the movie evoked nightmares of my childhood, which entailed hearing the wail of a Tornado siren while watching the news for any indication of where it was headed. I recall vividly the wonder and terror rolled up in one package. Happy my neighborhood was spared. Saddened by neighbors who lost every possession and those who lost their lives. As a teen, I wanted to become a storm chaser, instead I became a writer.
As a native of Oklahoma now living in Florida, I am flattened by the devastation, which occurred in my native state on Monday, May 20th and will attempt to give an account. As of the time I finally put the pen down, there were 24 dead, including 9 children from the largest tornado I’ve ever heard of in my life. It was billed as an EF5 with winds from 166 to 200 mph. The thing was two miles wide. Can you imagine a two-mile mass of swirling air coming at you? I hope you never have to.
The worst part of this ordeal to me is the helplessness I feel by not being there to help in the effort. I have made use of my immediate family, specifically my older brother Zack Phillips III. He is a Utility worker in Oklahoma City and is involved in the cleanup effort.
Here is the scenario on why storms occur in the “Tornado Alley” states of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri. Basically it is as simple as a battle of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico colliding with dry air from the Southwest or Rockies triggering thunderstorms and tornadoes.
How silly of me to think I could escape tornadoes on the beaches of the “The Sunshine State.” I arrived in Florida in 1990 via my first duty station in the U.S. Navy. Although I’ve now lived in Florida for 20 years it wasn’t the reprieve from twisters I’d hoped it to be. The Tornadoes found me. My first experience was on February, 22, 1998, when seven tornadoes ripped through central Florida killing 42 people. This was the deadliest outbreak of twisters in Florida’s history and I was here for it.
Nearly a decade later, twisters would chase me again in Daytona Beach, as four Christmas Day tornadoes in 2006 damaged hundreds of Florida homes, flipped airplanes at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and tore roofs off three apartment buildings. That one was only an F2, (winds of 113 mph to 157 mph). At the time, I lived directly up the block from Sutton Place, one of the apartment complexes that was partially demolished. But once again, I was spared.
Nearly 14 years after Moore, Oklahoma, was destroyed by an EF5 tornado on May 3, 1999 it has happened again. 46 people were killed during an outbreak that tore through Oklahoma, the strongest of which was an EF5 that hit the towns of Moore, Bridge Creek, Newcastle, Midwest City and Del City.
This recent disaster has eclipsed the 1999 outbreak. The new Fujita scale, (implemented in 2007) has the same basic design as the original Fujita scale: six categories from zero to five representing increasing degrees of damage by a tornado. Just like in the movie “Twister” an EF5 equates to the finger of GOD. On Tuesday, the National Weather Service upgraded it from EF4 status but you saw what it did.
A week from Saturday is the beginning of Hurricane Season, which lasts half the year for people in the Southeast. Unbeknownst to many of you, Florida actually reports a high number and density of tornadoes but not like those at home which erase towns from the map. Newsflash! Florida is the thunderstorm capital of the United States with the most thunderstorms per square mile and some of those storms produce tornadoes. July is generally the most active tornado month in Florida.
Florida’s Hurricanes can spawn tornadoes also. Actually, according to Tornado expert Dr. Greg Forbes, Florida was number one on his list of tornado states. The combination of spring tornado season and summer and fall hurricane season creates an almost year-round tornado threat for Florida. Imagine that, Floridians. I pray my Floridian neighbors take heed and better prepare for the impending season which focuses on hurricanes, which spawn tornadoes. Especially since this state rates number one on a tornado Expert’s list.
I prepared a poem to emphasize my feelings as I fought through tears:
Finger of GOD by Karsceal Turner
The morning of May 20, was normal. By the same afternoon, 24 people went to meet their maker.
ROBBED of life by the fury of a Springtime Oklahoma Twister…
After such devastation, believers lean and cling to the notion of this being the Lord’s will…in wake of the catastrophic still….
Cleanup has begun, but there isn’t a way to clean up dozens of lives affected…except thru embrace of a love from the heavens.
Indeed, even as we brace for another dose of the terror in the region known as Tornado Alley…with hands folded, I reflect on the fact that this could have happened to ANYONE in this great Country.
And so I pray…. This is why I pray, knowing full well, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away….
Still, ain’t no way of knowing what the Higher Power has in store for TODAY!
Respect the finger of GOD.
