Tornadoes

Tornadoes hit Garfield County
and make a long day for members
of the Sheriff's Department.

The number of tornadoes that hit Garfield County on
Saturday May 23, 2008 is not known. The estimate of
approximately 10 tornadoes occurred. The strongest of those
was rated an EF2, with wind speeds between 111 mph and
135mph, according to Erin Maxwell, NWS meteorologist.
The tornado, nearly a mile wide, was on the ground 11.2
miles, first touching down seven miles southwest of
Covington, Ok in a path that stretched to 10 miles southeast
of Covington.
These series of tornado's started south of Garfield County
near Lacey,Ok where buildings was destroyed at a Seaboard
Foods pig farm, the farm took major damage. The storm then
moved into Garfield County near Bison, Ok where tornado's
again started doing damage and moved east. The storm, which
spotters reported as spawning a "large and..at times.. multiple
vortex tornado". The way the tornado's would keep coming
down and going back up made it real hard to keep a true
number count.
These storms did a lot of damage as they tracked though the
county. Powers lines, trees, homes and the 100 year old
Potter Church in the Covington area had only the cement
steps that led to the Church remaining. Oklahoma 74 highway
had to be closed for a time after a tornado ripped a trailer
from it's foundation & leaving it's contents scattered across
the highway.

Photos of the storm by Jerry Niles and Bobby Bennett.
Members of the Sheriff's Department was storm spotting
during these tornadoes.

Web site
by
Roger Parson
All photos and web pages are
Copyrighted by Roger Parson and
the Garfield County Sheriff's Office.
2009.

On Sat. 4-25-09 at about 10:00pm the north side of
Enid, Ok. was hit by a EF-2 tornado. One area that
had a lot of damage was the Chisholm Trail Expo
Center on the Garfield County Fairgrounds. The Expo
Center had just ended the 2nd day of a 3 day Home
Show, some of the vendors where still at the Center
when it hit. No one was hurt but we was very lucky that
it didn't happen when everyone was in the building.
There was about 340 vendors. The inmates at the
Sheriff's Work Release Center that are housed at the
fairgrounds got to help clean up the mess.