Tornadoes leave five dead in Oklahoma

April 15, 2012 – OKLAHOMA – Tornadoes reported across the Midwest and Plains on Saturday and early Sunday left five people dead in Oklahoma and damaged houses, a hospital, a jail, an Air Force base and other buildings around the region, officials said. Oklahoma authorities said five people died early Sunday after a tornado hit in and around the northwest Oklahoma town of Woodward. Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Keli Cain said the state medical examiner’s office confirmed the fatalities in the Woodward area. She didn’t know the gender or age of the victims or details of their deaths. The National Weather Service said the tornado hit at 12:18 a.m. Sunday. Woodward Mayor Roscoe Hill said the sirens were not apparently working when the tornado struck, although they had been sounding loudly from storms on Saturday afternoon. The tornado hit in a mixed area of residences and businesses, Hill said. Woodward police said search and rescue units headed to the damaged areas. Storms also were reported in Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska. National Weather Service forecasters issued sobering outlooks that the worst of the weather would hit around nightfall, predicting that conditions were right for exceptionally strong tornadoes. Weather officials and emergency management officials worried most about what would happen if strong storms hit when people were sleeping, not paying attention to weather reports and unlikely to hear warning sirens. –SF Gate