ADA, Okla. — Severe storms hit Ada on Tuesday morning. The National Weather Service office in Norman confirmed they found EF-1 damage.
“I heard the rain whipping on the windows and right after that, the tornado sirens started going off,” said Lacey Hatton. “It’s scary. I’ve lived here forever; I’ve never seen one come through, really, this close.”
Hatton is helping with the storm cleanup. She said when she saw the storm outside her window, she jumped in to help her neighbors.
“The guy that lives here is a good friend of my dad’s, so we came over here and started helping cut down trees,” said Hatton. “Just trying to help where we can with chainsaws and pulling stuff out of people’s front doors.”
The town is covered with destruction; trees snapped, power lines are dangling, and the storm tossed a trampoline in the air like a toy.
Corey Black, also helping clean up after the storm, said he’s relieved the storm didn’t hit his house.
“There’s damage everywhere. We just live a street and a half over,” said Hatton. “All of our stuff was across the road. Trees [were] down. We have to clean that up. We were just seeing if we could help anybody else.”
The City of Ada warned residents to stay put due to gas leaks.
Much of the city is without power, police blocked roads, and schools canceled classes.
What moved through in minutes caused weeks of repair.
Crews are still assessing damage. No injuries have been reported.