Page 6 - May 1999 News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

A warning that, no doubt, helped save lives. this part of oklahoma is no stranger to deadly tornados. >> downed trees and power lines blocked roads. a roof was blown off this school. >> reporter: in may 1999 the town was hit by a twister that reached speeds over 300 mile an hour. the top of the scale, an ef-5. some of the fastest winds ever recorded on earth. 36 people were killed. and the storm still ranks as one of the costliest in american history. how long will you stay on the scene in joplin? >> until everybody is found. >> until everybody is found. >> reporter: the new round of deadly st...

Tennis shoes belonging to a grandchild and was very excited to find those tennis shoes even though the rest of her home was gone. >> kurt, you've been in this area, as you said, and you were there during the may 1999 tornado, which had the highest recorded wind speeds in the world. where does this rank? you said it's more destructive? >> well forecasters of the national weather service norman forecast office had been warning oklahomans that this could happen for at least a week, it was last wednesday when they first started alerting that that we would see a significant tornado outbreak and man...

>> cells, supercells, and when the supercells we can have different tornadoes. looks like right now the tornado dissipated do be rain in the distance and we talked about the rain wrap obscuring our view, but hopefully this funnel cloud has dissipated and we're done with it. some of the reports i'm getting, neil, are just awful in this area of moe, oklahoma, as the storm went through. you were mentioning may, 1999. if you tell anybody in the oklahoma city area about may 1999, they nod their heads and say, yes, we know it well. we remember it. and it was one of the most prolific in oklahoma city...

Time a two-mile wide debris ball, which is unfortunately material picked up. it could be a devastating tornado but hopefully due to the great coverage, everybody got underground and they're being safe right now. >> neil: thank you very much. for those just tuning it, it is unusual to have serious tornado activity. its all the more unusual to have live pictures of it as it touches down, but this is the case in oklahoma. where a short while ago a very, very serious tornado has touched down. many arguing that it could match the violence that hit this area, this very yeah, on may 3, 1999. warren, ...

That maybe you might have stayed in the area because of the weather not being able to get out. you've been on the ground, and now you're back in d.c. watching these images. this has got to be devastating for you and your constituents. >> it is. obviously we're watching what is traumatic for us. you talk about oklahomans talk about may 1999. and it is a significant long trek tornado similar to that and a lot of injuries. this is different in that it hit right at 3:00 in the afternoon. obviously it hit schools. we haven't had that happen before. schools have a safe place to go but we haven't had...