Originally Posted by
substanceabuse
According to KOCO, "ALERT: State medical examiner's office: says 24 people were killed Monday. They have been identified. Spokeswoman Amy Elliott says multiple reports of the same victims and downed phone lines caused confusion leading to previously higher death tolls."
The confusion regarding the death tolls could most certainly been attributed to how absolutely chaotic the aftermath of this was. Phone lines within probably a 15 mile radius of that area were either barely functioning or dead, and cell phone reception was completely gone for a couple of hours. I couldn't contact anyone I knew for a while during and after the storm any way but by text message, and even that was spotty.
This is a good question, and the best answer I can come up with is that people didn't know what path the storm would take or that the tornado would be as insane as it was. Under normal circumstances, we're told that we should take shelter either in a storm shelter or in a central room in our house with no windows. Also, I wouldn't say people had 30 full minutes with full awareness of the situation to make a decision to just "hang tight". According to weather.com,
2:40 p.m. CDT: A tornado warning was issued that included Moore, Okla.
2:52 p.m.: Radar indicates rotation may be reaching the ground near Moore
2:56 p.m.: First reports of a tornado in progress
3:01 p.m.: Tornado Emergency issued for Moore
3:36 p.m.: Tornado "ropes out" and dissipates
There comes a point when, under normal tornado circumstances, running is a BAD idea, and once the tornado hit the ground we had no idea how huge and devastating it was until the storm had dissipated and we could see just what happened. It's taken them a day to even figure out how strong to classify the tornado.
Oh, and the storm has now been classified as an EF-5.
"The National Weather Service says the tornado that hit Moore, Okla., was a top-of-the-scale EF-5 twister with winds of at least 200 mph."