OSAGE COUNTY, Okla. — Five tornadoes in Oklahoma on Jan. 8 tied a state record for most in a single day, according to the National Weather Service. One struck the town of Wynona.
The twister has since been graded an EF-1, measuring about 90 miles per hour when it hit the southeast part of town.
WATCH: Wynona business destroyed by EF-1 tornado:
Wynona business destroyed by EF-1 tornado
The few properties in its path bore the brunt of damage, most notably the main barn for TNT Field Service.
“We found pieces of metal, pieces of wood that had screws in them, just everywhere,” Wynona Board of Education president Crystal Edwards told 2 News when she checked on a friend’s house, imagining the worst.
“When I turned down this road, it just reminded me of what Barnsdall just experienced,” Edwards said.
Thad Wells’ property next door holds pretty much everything dear to him: livestock, his 13-year-old truck and oil servicing business, and most of all his family.
“It started shaking the house,” Wells said. “And I looked down the hallway and looked out the window and saw debris in the air, and I started yelling ‘Tornado!’ I mean, I just started screaming.”
While most of the town got by with mere strong winds, the Jan. 8 tornado forced Wells, his wife, and two kids to huddle under mattresses while their carport was blown off their roof.
2 News Oklahoma
Wells’ outbuilding housing his TNT Field Service business, however, appeared as if it had been hit with literal TNT.
“This is the second time we’ve rebuilt this, you know? So I’m just thinking about not even putting it back here and doing something else somewhere else,” Wells said.
The day’s only confirmed tornado in northeast Oklahoma luckily did not cause any injuries.
“When I get depressed about all of it, and I worry if we are going to afford to rebuild and everything, I just tell myself what I felt like in that 10 or 15 seconds (when the tornado hit),” Wells said.
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