By Devyn Lyon, FOX23.com News Staff
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt was joined by state and local officials at the Tulsa Tech Peoria Campus on Sunday after it was hit by a tornado on Friday.
The group of elected officials toured the damage in Tulsa and other parts of the state.
“We’re here with you — the state’s here,” said Stitt. “We’ll do everything we can to help you.”
Governor Kevin Stitt, Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols, and several other local and state officials toured the damage at a Tulsa Tech campus left by the recent burst in tornadic weather.
“Just kind of surveying the damage, [about] to head down to Beggs,” Stitt said. “Unfortunately, we lost two Oklahomans there.”
Ceiling and classrooms leveled by the high winds, but despite the damage state and school officials are relieved the building was empty when the storm hit.
“Fortunately, it happened Friday night when no classes were happening. There’s other nights in the week where it could’ve been much worse,” said Stitt.
The State Department of Emergency Management said about 30 structures statewide were damaged by Friday’s round of storms, but it does not meet a threshold for FEMA assistance.
This means the rebuild will be left to insurance, various state grant funds and local nonprofits.
“The state here, we’re able to help as requested, and we just want to remind everybody that it is the beginning of the storm season, so have your plan in place,” said Annie Vest, Director of Oklahoma Emergency Management.
Two of the largest points of contact from last Friday’s tornadoes were schools — Tulsa Tech and Beggs Middle School.
“Fortunately, we have other locations that we will be able to bus those kids to, but we’ve seen this before,” said Stitt. “We’ve had to rebuild, we’ve had to kind of shuffle things around.”
“All of the areas where students would have gone in the case of an emergency are fine. I think the message is when we do have the events, following directions, getting to a safe place is really critical,” said Mayor Nichols. “This is a really strong well-built building but as you can see a tornado can change that. I think the big thing is when you have the warnings, pay attention to them.”
The governor and other elected officials also spoke to nearby neighbors who saw damage from the storms as well. For the Tulsa Tech campus, they estimate it could be a two year rebuild.
