Tornado 911: ‘We got hit! We’ve got a bunch of stuff on top of us!’
The distressed cries for help moments after a killer tornado swept through southern Oklahoma City and smashed the suburb of Moore can be heard in 911 calls released this week.
The recordings, released by the Moore Police Department, reveals some of the chaos following the devastating tornado, which killed 24 people, including 10 children.
In one of the calls, obtained by CBS News, a man pleads for help from a daycare center that had been damaged.
PHOTOS: Powerful tornado slams Oklahoma
“We got a daycare full of babies. We need help bad. We need help bad. We got a daycare that just got cremated .... We got tons of babies in here,” he says.
In another call, a woman who said she lived in Moore asks frantically about the location of the tornado.
“Where is the tornado at?” the woman asks.
“Last we heard was 19th and Western,” the dispatcher tells her.
“Oh, my God,” she says, crying.
“You need to get in shelter,” the dispatcher tells her.
“Thank you,” she says, before hanging up.
In another, a woman explains that her home was struck by the tornado and the she and others were trapped under rubble.
“We got hit!” she tells the dispatcher. “We’ve got a bunch of stuff on top of us!”
The dispatcher asks the woman to have everyone try to free themselves, but if they cannot to call her back.
“They could possibly get out ... but everything in front of us from what we could see is wiped out,” she says.
One caller survived by taking shelter in her closet, only to be stuck inside once the tornado passed.
“The tornado just hit us,” the caller says. “We’re trapped in the closet.”
“Are you injured?” the dispatcher asks her.
“No, we just can’t breathe,” she answers.
ALSO:
Family returns to their wrecked house: ‘Hey, it’s Oklahoma’
Teacher’s recording captures harrowing moments during tornado
Tornado aftermath: A picture saved is worth a thousand memories
stephen.ceasar@latimes.com | Twitter: @stephenceasar
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