NARDIN, Okla. — Northern Oklahoma dodged a bullet after many tornadoes touched down and high winds tore through Monday night.
Several people in Nowata County, just a few counties east, were injured but they are expected to recover.
Nobody was hurt and none of the animals were seriously injured in the Nardin area.
But there was hardly a barn standing anywhere in sight after the storms came through.
“I need to get the cows milked and the electricity is off and I have a generator in the barn,” farmer Scott Smith said. “But the barn’s laying on top of it.”
Most barns that were in the area are scattered for miles on end near Medford and Nardin.
Even the co-op was hit hard.
The storm rolled away tin like a roll of tin foil, peeling metal from a grain bin.
Two-by-fours were shot into the ground like a nails from a nail gun.
“We’ve been out here for a long time and the main things were my daughter’s horses because that’s her love and we when couldn’t find them, you know? You never know what kind of shape you’re going to find them in,” Annette Burke said.
About a mile away, Burke took shelter in her basement.
She later found her horses.
They were a little cut up but not seriously hurt; a miracle considering what they somehow managed to survive.
“When you looked outside you couldn’t tell which way the wind was blowing because everything was just going in a circle motion, the bushes, the trees. There was no north, south. Everything was in a twist.”
