‘Between the Screams, We Heard Prayers’
Lindsie Wright, like many Moore residents, had lived through the aftermaths of the 1999 and 2003 tornado outbreaks. Luckily, she had never actually been through one. She remembers that on May 19, 2013, she was especially alert to the weather as an EF-4 tornado struck the nearby town of Shawnee. On the morning of May 20, she knew the day held a dark promise of more severe storms to come. When she dropped off her young daughter with the baby sitter, Wright sent along a small bag and her daughter’s bike helmet, just in case.
Aware of the potential for severe storms, the fifth-grade teacher at Plaza Towers Elementary School says the day progressed as expected in her class. While parents emailed her an occasional weather update, she and her students watched a movie and collected textbooks. Wright wore her pink Plaza Towers t-shirt with the logo, “Keep Calm and Panther On.”
At 2:36 p.m., Wright received an email from a concerned parent, warning that a large, rotating storm would arrive in Moore within 20 minutes. She began to move her students into the hallway, instructing them to crouch in the tornado position – head down, bottom up, hands over head. Almost immediately, Wright sensed another danger.
“We sat in the hallway in tornado position for a few minutes when I remembered the large hail we had the afternoon before,” she says. “Because our hallway was lined with skylights, something in me started moving students into the restroom, away from the threat of falling glass and the anticipated large hail. Shortly after instructing the remaining fourth-, fifth- and some sixth-grade students and some teachers into the restroom stalls, I took my position at the open doorway to the restroom.”
Wright soon received a text message from her husband stating he heard the tornado was already in Moore, and he could not make it to pick up their daughter before it struck. Wright replied: “It is. Pray for her.” And then it hit.
“The sound of the children screaming as the tornado hit was something I will never forget,” Wright says. “Between the screams, we heard prayers. At one point, the teacher beside me, whose arms were locked with mine, was ripped from me. I was thrown into one wall, she into another. I opened my eyes to see where she was because I just knew she was gone. I remember thinking, ‘It has got to be over soon,’ and seeing tires and tree branches in the sky.
“I yelled for the kids to keep their heads down and eyes closed. We (teachers) kept shouting reassurances – ‘It will be over soon.’ ‘We are okay.’ ‘Stay calm.’ At one point, an overwhelming sense of peace came over me. We were in the moment, and there was nothing we could do about it.”
