While Ch 5 & 9 gave great updates and advice, I was watching all 3 channels on my computer and talking with my daughter in Yukon on speakerphone all afternoon.
Mike Morgan K4 Meteorologist :
She lives in Yukon. Ch5 & 9 and the Weather Channel were all on the same page – giving right advice for people to seek shelter.
I was watching the radar all afternoon and was shocked when that last little rounded storm cell, which looked benign compared to all the previous cells that already passed over OKC had come and gone and it looked that once this one would pass that the rest of the evening would have been calm til after midnight.
Then suddenly that rounded cell developed points and hook echoes in all directions and word was out that a tornado was on the ground outside El Reno. My daughter was getting nervous as she lives in Yukon, which is nearby.
The Kfor TV Meteorologist, Mike Morgan started saying the storm was getting big and looked like the one in Moore a week earlier~! He began telling people to outrun it by heading south and to leave their homes unless they had underground shelters.
Kfor’s advice was so contrary to regular precautions and what other channels were saying. It also went to Facebook fast and my daughter received notice to run.
My daughter lives in Yukon with her 3 babies ages 1,3 and 4 Her husband was at work in Kansas.They were safe in their Yukon home until they heard TV CH kfor 4 meterologist Mike Morgan’s urgent message was to flee if their safe room was ‘above ground’ and told them only those in ‘below ground’ could survive it-
She looked out the window and watched her neighbors get into their cars and flee. So she made the terrifying decision to also leave as she is new to OK but didnt know where to go. She fled, like her neighbors , heading south as advised by TV 7 the repeated facebook messages, only to get stuck with 1000s in the I-35 gridlock!
They became sitting ducks~
The closest listed shelter I could find online was down in Norman~
She saw the storm coming fast behind her and another storm coming from the south west. I stayed on speaker phone with her and watched the radar and CH4,5, & 9 as well as the weather Channel and Noa site.
Traffic was bumper to bumper.I told her to get off the highway and she was able to exit in south Moore, then turned down another road still heading south but then got on N 27 as I tried to find any place on map for her to go to seek shelter from the storm. Then she saw a man in front of his house, pulled over to ask directions.
While Part 1 Video has been deleted from youtube, this next video picks up after the Yukon debacle but you can still hear Mike Morgan telling people to get underground. That itself is fine – if there is a place you can go underground at. Again however he was telling others to head south, like he did when the storm was approaching Yukon.
Thank God they got off the road in Moore when they did [but that too was unsafe with another Tornado bearing down on them].
That local resident, Mr.Henthorn let them into his family’s shelter & saved them~
Fleeing so close to impact was BAD ADVICE! ~especially with commuters trying to get home.
I bookmarked that Kfor news cast that told Yukon residents to flee less than 10 mins before the expected impact, BUT now see they deleted it. Why? …Seems they deleted other videos that shared his reckless advice. The youtube above was taken from a recorded radio announcement simulcasted which the author of the youtube was able to save and added storm coverage as well.I thank the person who put this youtube together so others can see and understand how wrong it was for Mike Morgan to make such reckless remarks which sent 1000s more into harms way. His remarks could have caused my daughter & grandchildren to be seriously hurt or killed that night.
Why did Mike Morgan, who is supposed to be an experienced meteorologist and veteran TV newsman, take it upon himself to break all the safety rules that caused the added chaos and put so many 1000s more in the direct paths of those tornadoes!! If he and that station thought he was doing the right thing, why did they delete the youtubes that showed him and what he told so many to do? Some say he owes Oklahoma an apology. I think he owes them a whole lot more. my daughter has since returned home long enough to pack her bags and take her children to stay with my older daughter’s family in Missouri. She is terrified from her ordeal fleeing that night and more so with the predictions of more storms to come, now seeing that Yukon, Oklahoma doesnt have any public storm shelters.She will only consider remaining in OKC area if she finds a new house that includes a shelter; Just moving to OKC a few months ago, even with knowing that tornadoes occur, she had no idea that most places dont have public shelters. It was very disturbing to find that the schools likewise have not shelters.Back east every school has shelters, so this was unheard of for us. Even as a child in NYC we had shelters at all the schools that were also fall out shelters, safe from nuclear attacks during the cold war. I hope Oklahoma begins to install shelters in schools and public places, so their citizens dont have to get caught in gridlock trying to flee storms in the future.
Meanwhile I think Mike Morgan should be held accountable for his irresponsible announcements.
TV 4’s Mike is Ok’s Chicken Little!
Ave 