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Fallin Tours Damage In Northeast Oklahoma, NWS Rates Quapaw Twister EF2

Kurt Gwartney
/
Eastern Oklahoma Red Cross
Gov. Mary Fallin meets with leaders, emergency managers, and first responders in Quapaw Monday, April 28.

Gov. Mary Fallin toured damage in the northeastern Oklahoma community of Quapaw on Monday, a day after a tornado killed one person and damaged nearly 60 structures.

Sixty-eight-year-old John L. Brown, of Baxter Springs, Kansas, was killed when he was traveling through Quapaw and he pulled over into a parking lot. Fifteen homes were totally destroyed.

Oklahoma escaped relatively unscathed - especially since no tornado warnings had been issued beforehand.

No tornado sirens warned residents in Quapaw of the imminent danger of the storm because a tornado warning was never issued for the county.

According to state emergency management officials, sirens warning residents are usually sounded when a tornado warning is issued for the county. Because the tornado that hit Quapaw materialized so quickly on the radar, a warning was not issued in time.

Sirens were not sounded during or after the storm because the siren in the town was blown away by the tornado, officials said. Local authorities are working with state and national weather officials to investigate the matter.

Storm surveyors have released more information on a tornado that killed one person in Quapaw earlier this week.

The National Weather Service in Tulsa says the EF2 tornado started at 5:29 p.m. Sunday about 3 miles southwest of Quapaw. The tornado packing maximum wind speeds of 115 to 130 mph traveled more than 11 miles and crossed the Kansas border to Baxter Springs before it ended at 5:42 p.m. The tornado had a maximum width of 325 yards.

The Kansas portion of the tornado was also rated EF2 based on damage.

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