Published: May 25, 2008 11:07 am      

Tornado causes damage in Kingfisher County

OKLAHOMA CITY — Emergency officials continued assessing damage Saturday night after a slow-moving storm system dropped several tornadoes in rural parts of north-central Oklahoma.

A twister destroyed at least three barns at a hog farm near Lacey in Kingfisher County, about 75 miles northwest of Oklahoma City, said Michelann Ooten, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Emergency Management Department.

No one at the farm was injured, and there were no immediate reports of injuries elsewhere — although the storm continued to pose a threat.

John Hardaway, a production manager at the farm — which is operated by Seaboard Foods — told The Oklahoman that the 3,900 pigs housed at the farm were kept in crates and most were not hurt.

James Nimrod, the deputy emergency management director for Kingfisher County, said that a home there suffered damage but that "it will be habitable after repairs." He identified the home's owner as Jerry Taylor and said Taylor was home when the storm hit and was briefly trapped inside, but was uninjured.

In adjacent Garfield County, a trailer was blown onto State Highway 74, about four miles south of Covington, although no injuries were reported, said the county's emergency manager, Mike Honigsberg. He said the storm also resulted in downed power lines in the area.

Numerous tornado warnings were issued during the early evening hours as the storm continued east, and more storms began developing in Garfield County late in the evening. Warnings had been issued in advance of previous tornadoes, including two that were on the ground at the same time near the northern Logan County town of Orlando.

Several other tornadoes touched down in the area near Hennessey in Kingfisher County, Bison in Garfield County and Marshall in northern Logan County. Many of the tornadoes, which were caught by television cameras, appeared to dissipate within moments of touching down.

"We lost count of tornadoes at about a dozen," Honigsberg said.

Perry Fire Department Capt. Kyle King said a twister touched down about four miles south of that Noble County town, taking off the roofs of two outbuildings but not causing much more damage.

"We were pretty lucky," King said.

Daryl Williams, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Norman, said pace of the storm was slow for a system producing tornadoes.

"It gives us time to get the warnings out but where the tornadoes are on the ground, it creates a lot more damage," Williams said. "We've been lucky because this has been mostly rural areas, but it's not lucky if it's your farm."

Williams said it was definitely the largest outbreak in terms of number of tornadoes on a single day in Oklahoma this year. There were 11 tornadoes recorded on May 10, when a deadly twister struck Picher in northeastern Oklahoma before moving into Missouri.

"There's been a bunch," Williams said, without specifying a particular number.

Kingfisher County Sheriff's dispatcher Lonnie McDade said the only damage he knew of in that county was to the hog farm near Lacey, along with some downed power lines.

"It's all been out mostly in the countryside," McDade said. "But that farm happened to be in the path and took a direct hit."

Ooten said the hog farm was considered a complete loss and damage also was reported to a grain elevator on State Highway 132 in far northwestern Kingfisher County.

Williams expected the storm system to continue affecting Oklahoma for several more hours as it moved eastward.

Despite the pace of the storm, Williams said there had not been alarming levels of rainfall in the area. More than one inch of rain was recorded in the Enid area, but the larger concern was tornadoes and large hail.

The weather service extended a tornado watch area to include 23 counties in northwest and north-central Oklahoma, including the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, until 1 a.m. Sunday.



ASSOCIATED PRESS writer Murray Evans contributed to this report from Oklahoma City.