The declaration enables state agencies to make emergency purchases and acquisitions in order to help communities recover from the storms. The order can be amended to add additional counties if needed.
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Chester Barnes, 76, was found dead on Monday in the city of Wynnewood after his home was “blown apart by the tornado”, according to Garvin County emergency services. The medical examiner’s office said it was conducting autopsies to determine how the men died.
About 125 miles north of Dallas, another tornado struck Katie, Oklahoma causing extensive damage to the small town.
A photo, captured by Todd Lindley with the National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office, shows the value of heeding tornado safety rules.
As the storms worked their way through Kentucky on Tuesday at least one tornado reportedly touched down in Graves County in western Kentucky.
The counties included in the governor’s emergency declaration are: Atoka, Bryan, Choctaw, Cleveland, Coal, Comanche, Garvin, Johnson, Kay, McCurtain, Murray, Noble, Payne, Stephens and Tillman. The winds from an EF-3 tornado is considered extensive enough to destroy mobile homes and entire stories of well-built homes, lift cars off the ground and uproot trees. The storm system dropped multiple tornadoes, killing one man in Connerville and another, believed to be in his 70s, near Wynnewood, Oklahoma.
Smith says the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma, sent survey teams Tuesday to at least six sites to investigate possible tornado damage.
Oklahoma was hit hard–two people died and no structure in its path was left standing.
In all, the Storm Prediction Center received 23 reports of tornadoes in Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma.
Tornadoes that touched down in Oklahoma late Monday afternoon are also responsible for claiming two lives.
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Interstate 35 near Wynnewood was temporarily closed on Monday so the storms could pass.
