Area residents woke up to fallen trees, missing fences and damage to homes and vehicles following a band of severe storms that hit the Oklahoma metro area overnight.
The storms that crossed the metro Friday, April 3, impacted areas stretching from Will Rogers International Airport to Shawnee.
In southwest Oklahoma City, Will Rogers International Airport lost power briefly due to the storm.
Airport officials confirmed to The Oklahoman that the airport’s generators kicked in, bringing power back and staff is unsure when regular power was fully restored. The airport was not damaged by the storm according to officials.
However, a building at Oklahoma City Community College was damaged. And homeowners between Southwest 81st and 82nd streets and South Villa Avenue and South Country Club Drive woke to find missing fence panels, downed trees and more.
On April 4, Thang Huynh picks up a door blown down on his son’s home by strong storms that came through the area on April 3.
“It was just kind of a boom,” said Wayne Fischer, a homeowner who lives in Oklahoma City at the corner of SW 81st and South Country Club Drive. “The neighbor, all of his stuff came over into our yard and busted one window in the bedroom and messed up our roof a little bit.”
Fischer does not have a shelter and said he heard debris flying. He said his neighbor had recently built a storage shed that was completely destroyed by the storm.
“They had a small workshop there they’d just built, it’s completely gone, I don’t know where it’s at,” he said.
Fischer’s neighbor Thang Huynh confirmed that the shed he used while remodeling the property belonging to his son was destroyed along with a fence and several neighboring fences.
Debris was strewn for blocks and there was evidence powerful winds had moved large objects: A trampoline was wrapped around a power pole, a wooden play structure moved over a fence, and Huynh said a small truck in the backyard was facing a different direction than how he’d parked it.
“That toy, it was from the neighbor’s yard,” said Arturo Rodriguez, pointing to the play structure as he walked around his home.
Rodriguez, whose daughter and grandmother were home alone during the storm while he and his wife were out, said there are some leaks in the roof, broken windows and gutters and fences to repair, but everyone is safe. Important because his family members couldn’t make it to the family’s in-ground shelter when the sirens went off.
“They tried to go to the shelter, but the rain came so fast they couldn’t make it because [my grandmother] is old. She was afraid she’d fall down before getting in the shelter,” Rodriguez said.
Near the entrance to that shelter, a large branch from a nearby tree lay and the gutter from someone else’s house swung from the tree’s remaining branches. Remarkably though, Rodriguez said the power lines stayed up and while the family did lose power briefly Friday night, OG&E restored it quickly.
In Shawnee, areas of town north of Interstate-40 saw damage, including a canopy blown off its foundation at a local E-Z Mart at Westech Road and Oklahoma Highway 18. The canopy hit a nearby power pole, which OG&E employees were working to repair.
The National Weather Service confirmed a radar-indicated tornado hit the area Friday, though damage assessment has not been completed to provided a rating yet.
Contributing: Josh Kelly, Staff Writer
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Southwest OKC, Shawnee residents begin cleanup after overnight storms
