OKLAHOMA CITY - Three days after one of the most destructive tornadoes to strike Oklahoma in decades, people filed into a mortuary chapel Thursday morning amid heavy rain and flashes of lightning for the first of two dozen funerals.
As soaked mourners stepped into the South Colonial Chapel, they were handed a strand of pink yarn and asked to tie it to a finger or wrist. Of the 24 victims of the tornado that damaged or leveled parts of this city and the suburb of Moore on Monday, seven were 8- and 9-year-old pupils at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore. The first funeral was for one of those pupils, Antonia Lee Candelaria, 9.
They called her Tonie. She and the six other students who died were in the same thirdgrade class at Plaza Towers. Their teacher, Jennifer Doan, had sought to protect them in a hallway as the tornado approached, but the building caved in around them with the force of winds that reached speeds of up to 210 mph. Antonia’s best friend, classmate and neighbor, Emily Conatzer, 9, was also killed.
“They were always giggling, running, laughing and playing,” her family said in an online obituary. “They were inseparable, even in their last moments, they held on to one another and followed each other into Heaven and they will never be alone.”
At least 22 tornadoes have struck in or near Moore, killing more than 100 people, since the town was incorporated in 1893, according to the National Weather Service.The tornado that destroyed dozens of homes, businesses and schools Monday carved a destructive path for 17 miles and killed at least 24 people, but the one that touched down May 3, 1999, left an even longer, deadlier trail, staying on the ground for 38 miles and killing 36.
Despite the continual destruction, people have not fled Moore. They have stayed put and rebuilt, and others have moved to the town. Nearly 19,000 people lived there in 1970; by 2011, there were 56,000 residents.
The Republican lawmaker who represents the area in the state House of Representatives, Mark McBride, owns a roofing and home building company.
“It is a blue-collar town,” he said. “We’re pretty plain. We pay cash for things down here.”
McBride, 52, was born and raised in Moore and still lives here, and in his cowboy hat, boots and jeans he embodies the town’s unpretentious manner. At a news conference, he stood and announced on live television that if anyone needed a place to stay, he had room at his house. Then he gave outhis cell-phone number.
“I wasn’t joking,” McBride said. “I’ve got extra beds and a couch.”
Ken and Doris Saxon moved to a red brick home a few blocks from City Hall in 1962 with their four young children. A few years later, a tornado damaged Moore High School, where Doris Saxon’s brother was band director. There were other close calls: The 1999 tornado struck about 10 blocks north, and on Monday, they crouched in their bathroom, holding pillows and comforters over their heads. Their home, and their neighbors’ houses, were spared any major damage.
On Wednesday afternoon, the couple was outside in the yard. Doris Saxon, 78, a retired office manager, had her red gardening gloves on, picking up fallen tree limbs and branches, while her husband, 80, a retired auto mechanic, rested in the shade. She recalled that when the tornado hit the high school decades ago, her brother had been leading the school band in a performance. The roof came off and the rain poured in. He told them to stay and keep playing.
“In California you have earthquakes,” Doris Saxon said. “In New York, you have hurricanes. Everywhere you’ve got something. We just choose this over everything else. It’s a good place to live. It’s home.”
Jerrie Bhonde was with her husband, Hemant, when the tornado struck their home. They lived about a block from Plaza Towers Elementary School. Hemant Bhonde was killed in the tornado.
“In Oklahoma, we’re used to tornadoes, but this is morethan we’re used to,” she said Thursday from a hospital where she was being treated for injuries.
Jerrie Bhonde has several fractured ribs, lacerations and bruises, she said, likening her experience to being chewed up in a blender.
The couple had lived in the home for 34 years, but it was destroyed, she said. Hemant Bhonde, 65, had retired after working for General Motors for many years. He was born in India and came to the United States for a better life, she said.
“That day, the tornado just hit, and all of a sudden we were surrounded by walls coming down on us. My husband was lifted up into heaven. I tried to hold his hand, but he just blew out of my hand.”
Front Section, Pages 2 on 05/24/2013