in the village 707 and forest park at 7:18. spencer at 7:26. the system just rips along to the east at a very brisk pace at 40 miles per hour. not only are we worried about that incredibly dangerous tornado, but we have large hail out there the size of softballs. so that itself can be a fatal blow if you get hit in the head. also flooding and incredible danger here as we re getting torrential rain on saturated ground. a lot of lightning out there as well. of course, a lot of debris now out there that you re going to have to contend with. a very dangerous situation. that tornado warning does continue yet this evening, jake. and that tornado emergency, more serious than a tornado warning. it continues for ucon, richland, bethany and the village. everyone is being told by the government and by the national weather service to take immediate tornado precautions right now. we have reports that will rogers
the suburbs of ucon, bethany and oklahoma city. a tornado emergency means a large destructive tornado is moving into a densely populated area and widespread damage and fatalities are likely. that s what it means. it is likely that there will be widespread damage and fatalities. a tornado touched down in the el reno, oklahoma area. you see some of the wreckage. you see it on your screen now. some of the tornado chasers that we ve been touching base with all evening have talked about and shown us homes that are destroyed, vehicles that are destroyed and now that tornado is heading to the east-southeast according to chad myers. samantha moore is at the cnn weather center. samantha, what is the condition of the storm right now? well, it seems to be recycling on the back end here. notice how stretched out it looks compared to how it looked earlier. and just to get your barings here, of course, here is oklahoma city. here is i-40.
area and widespread damage and fatalities are considered likely. that is what the national weather service is warning right now. a tornado emergency has been issued for the western oklahoma city metro area that includes the suburbs of yukon, bethany and oklahoma city. we keep hearing reports and we see right now in the footage from koco, cnn affiliate on the right side of your screen, that there are a lot of people out driving tonight. obviously it s almost 7:00 in the oklahoma area. some people coming home from work, some people probably fleeing the area of the storm. but others are curious, others want to see the storm, and the government and the national weather service and the governor s office are saying do not do that. seek shelter immediately. this is a large violent storm and they expect there to be widespread damage and fatalities. george howell, who is from the area and also obviously covers is covering this storm for cnn is now in norman, oklahoma, where that horrific torn
the hail is on the north side. if you look at a tornado from the north, all you re going to see is hail. if you look from the west, all you ll see is rain from the back. i m looking at it direct from the southeast. the tornado still on the ground about a mile, mile and a half south of i-40. it could possibly even cross over i-40. maybe toward that chisolm trail park. i m probably within four miles, i think, of the circulation of the downtown ucon area. if you re in the ucon area, you need to be taking cover right now. the storm is very, very dangerous. how far are you from moore, oklahoma? the storm was predicted if it was continuing to follow the path it was on, it would hit moore, oklahoma, which was so devastatingly hit about 11 days ago. a little bit more. at roughly a quarter past the
moving towards a densely populated area. expected are widespread damage and fatalities. that is expected. that is how serious this is. the national weather service has issued metro area. the tornado emergency includes yukon, bethany, we know will rogers airport has been evacuated. we know that a violent, a large and violent tornado touched down east of highway 81 near el reno. we have seen some of the images from storm chasers such as dave holder and others, as they came upon wreckage, as they came upon destroyed homes, destroyed vehicles. i want to go now to is this someone we have on the phone? jim routen is a moore survivor. he s on the phone with us. his sister s house is getting hit. you may remember him from this photograph taken, we re not