Dis­as­ter strikes again:

A mas­sive tor­na­do roared through Moore and south Okla­homa City on Mon­day after­noon, grind­ing up neigh­bor­hoods and rav­aging at least one ele­men­tary school in its path.

Ter­ror quick­ly spread as the Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices Author­i­ty rushed ambu­lances to Bri­ar­wood Ele­men­tary School in the Moore School Dis­trict and to sev­er­al homes, busi­ness­es and inter­sec­tions in response to reports of mul­ti­ple injuries.

Par­ents of chil­dren could be seen rush­ing toward the school, dodg­ing downed pow­er lines and scat­tered debris.

The tor­na­do, which pre­lim­i­nary data sug­gests was a Lev­el 4 storm on the Enhanced Fuji­ta (EF) scale, is said to have been two miles wide, with winds stronger than one hun­dred and sev­en­ty miles per hour. As it ripped through Moore and oth­er sub­urbs of Okla­homa City, it left a wretched trail of mas­sive dev­as­ta­tion in its wake.

The mon­ster tor­na­do that ripped through Moore, Okla­homa ear­li­er today (Image shown on KFOR’s live feed and cour­tesy of KFOR)

In addi­tion to rav­aging Bri­ar­wood Ele­men­tary School, the tor­na­do also shred­ded apart Plaza Towns Ele­men­tary School. At least sev­en­ty-five chil­dren were inside Plaza Towns at the time it was hit. The build­ing was reduced to rubble.

Thir­ty-sev­en peo­ple have been con­firmed dead by the state med­ical exam­in­er’s office. The actu­al num­ber of casu­al­ties may rise as more bod­ies are found. Sur­vivors are still being pulled out of the debris of destroyed buildings.

Those who have lived through hor­rif­ic events like Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na or Super­storm Sandy and seen their prop­er­ty wiped out can no doubt empathize with the peo­ple of Moore, who have sad­ly seen destruc­tive twisters before. (An equal­ly-fierce tor­na­do hit Moore just over four­teen years ago, in May of 1999).

Dev­as­ta­tion as seen from the air (Image cour­tesy of KFOR’s live feed)

The White House said that Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma had placed a call to Okla­homa Gov­er­nor Mary Fallin to assure her that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment would pro­vide what­ev­er sup­port the state might need. Here’s a read­out of that call:

This evening the Pres­i­dent spoke with Okla­homa Gov­er­nor Mary Fallin to express his con­cern for those who have been affect­ed by the severe weath­er begin­ning last night and con­tin­u­ing today. While infor­ma­tion is still com­ing in, the Pres­i­dent made clear that his Admin­is­tra­tion, through FEMA, stands ready to pro­vide all avail­able assis­tance as the Governor’s team responds to the storm and that he has direct­ed his team to ensure that they are pro­vid­ing avail­able resources as the response unfolds. FEMA has deployed an Inci­dent Man­age­ment Assis­tance Team to the state emer­gency oper­a­tions cen­ter in Okla­homa City to sup­port state and local offi­cials on the ground and addi­tion­al per­son­nel and resources stand ready to be dis­patched as nec­es­sary. The Pres­i­dent told Gov­er­nor Fallin that the peo­ple of Okla­homa are in his and the First Lady’s thoughts and prayers and, while his team will con­tin­ue to keep him updat­ed, he urged her to be in touch direct­ly if there were addi­tion­al resources the Admin­is­tra­tion could provide.

The Red Cross has acti­vat­ed its “Safe & Well” web­site to help friends and rel­a­tives con­nect with indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies who are/were in the affect­ed area. If some­one is reg­is­tered, you’ll be able to find him or her by doing a search.

UPDATE, 6:02 PM: The death toll is now at fifty-one. More than a hun­dred and twen­ty peo­ple are being treat­ed for crit­i­cal injuries as a result of the tornado.