reed, tell me where you were and what happened. southwest oklahoma. there are also tornado storms out there but they didn t produce a 5 tornado. we actually went right by the cumulonimbus cloud that became that monster supercell that will produced the tornado that went through moore, oklahoma. it looked high based. it looked relatively small and soft. it went from basically a very weak little cumulonimbus cloud to a monster supercell in a very short amount of time. that happens and the ingredients for tornadoes and strong tornadoes come together in a very small location, and that just happened to be just west of moore, oklahoma, near the new castle area. that s what makes this different than the may 3rd, 1999 tornado. that was a very long track tornado that began about 35 miles west of norman.
there was a lot more warning. people in north moore and south oklahoma city knew that one was come. and then one developed really quickly. it was also a wider tornado which made it that much more damaging. jim bishop, you were a mile away i believe from where the tornado struck today. tell me about that. it was just a chilling experience. i mean, there isn t anything else like it. a major tornado developing going right through a metropolitan area. it s something a storm chaser never wants to see and it happened today. i was actually chasing with a couple of people and we were driving out out of kansas and driving into the oklahoma city area as the tornado was on the ground. i was listening to the local reports on the radio, and they were describing that it was just like may 3rd, 99. i was getting chills because i was getting closer and closer to it. there was so much rain and track and i was driving through the east side of oklahoma city.
finally we came up to about a mile and a half northeast of the tornado. you could see this massive edge. it didn t look like a normal tornado because it was so large. it looked like just a big debris field. i kept listening to the reports. it was going right through moore. it s just deb stating absolutely shocking. jim bishop and reed timer, thank you very much. i m being joined by todd lamb, oklahoma s lieutenant governor. we spoke earlier and it s clearly a catastrophe that s getting worse in terms of people with terrible injuries and who lost their lives. tell me how we are at the moment in terms of numbers of casualties. piers you have the most up to date numbers as far as 51 confirmed deaths, 20 of those are children. some information i have recently from one of the hospitals that have been treating individuals and victims from today. one of our trauma centers has
question. 1999 was the most devastating tornado as far as property damage and the enormity and the wind speed up until joplin a few years ago. the enormity of those 1999, 2003 moore was struck again with another tornado and for the third time as you mentioned the last 14 years today. i say that to say this. we already have more loss of life today in moore, oklahoma than we had at the time with the most devastating on the other hand in the history of the planet in 1999. so that gives you some idea of the enormity and the devastation that has struck moore oklahoma for the third time in just a decade and a half. it was more devastating than the 1999 tornado. absolutely heart breaking for all the people there and our thoughts and prayers are with all of them, especially the families waiting to hear if those poor little kids in that school, if any of them can be rescued at this late stage. thank you very much for joining me again. piers, thank you.
well, we will rebuild, we have seen time and time again the strength of our people, the courage, the perseverance, come back much stronger after tragedy. whether the may 3rd tornado that struck moore. the community have done very well. in a great period of time for our state with a strong economy, low unemployment. this has certainly thrown us back a long ways, but we ll regain our strength and i know our people and, you know, wey one thing we became famous for in 1995 during the bombing of the federal building, when we had 167 loss of life, our people can pull together, they will find the inner courage, strength, through prayer and neighbors are out helping fellow neighbors and we ll take care of our people and we certainly have the best first responders and emergency personnel i think in the nation to handle a crisis