Obama Visits Tornado-Torn Oklahoma
By Sara Murray
- Reuters
- President Barack Obama wipes away tears after hugging Plaza Tower Elementary School Principal Amy Simpson in Moore, Okla., Sunday, May 26, 2013. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)
President Barack Obama landed in Oklahoma City Sunday morning, greeted by an overcast sky and a pending tour of the wreckage from a tornado that left two dozen dead, including 10 children.
Landing at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Mr. Obama was greeted by Oklahoma officials and Air Force commanders. His first stop included meeting with military families whose off-base homes were destroyed or damaged in last week’s tornadoes.
Mr. Obama traveled to the Plaza Towers Elementary School, which was razed by the storm. As he walked near the school, he passed through piles of rubble 10 to 20 feet high and dotted with the remnants of a devastated community – a child’s pink parka, a plastic toy camcorder, a baby doll stroller. As flags on the buildings flew at half mast, someone had planted their own American flags amid the piles of rubble.
At a Moore, Okla., fire station, which was serving as a command center, the president met with the families of the children who died in the storm.
“The damage is pretty hard to comprehend,” Mr. Obama said Sunday afternoon.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, joined Mr. Obama on his tour, and described the scope of the damage the state is dealing with in a CNN interview earlier Sunday morning. “This is a massive debris field. It’s not just a couple of blocks, it’s miles, it’s 17 miles long, almost a mile-and-a-half wide,” she said. “So it’s not just a little area; there’s a lot to be done here. A lot of businesses are closed, a lot of people without jobs just because their businesses are closed.”
The journalist acting as the media pooler for the president Sunday described the scene near the school as “utter devastation.”
For residents whose homes were damaged or lost entirely, the challenge of getting what they need to get through everyday life was setting in.
“In a disaster like this, a lot of people lose their checkbooks. They lose their credit cards. They lose their driver’s license, their birth certificates, their insurance papers. They lose everything,” Ms. Fallin said in a CBS News interview.
FEMA’s efforts are already in the works in Oklahoma with more than 450 personnel on the ground. The agency has provided 43,000 meals and 150,000 liters of water, a White House spokesman said Sunday. The Red Cross and Salvation Army have stepped in to try to fill urgent needs.
“This is a strong community with strong character. There’s no doubt they will bounce back. But they need help,” Mr. Obama said Sunday, as he encouraged Americans to donate to the Red Cross. “We know Moore is going to come back stronger from this tragedy. We’re going to be with you every step of the way.”
For many Oklahoma families, the help they’ve received so far marks only the beginning. “There comes a time a month from now or whenever it might be that people really start having to crank out the money to get their homes built and get the things they really need to replace things they lost,” Ms. Fallin said on CBS.
So far 4,200 people have applied for $3.4 million in assistance, the White House spokesman said.
It remains to be seen whether the tragedy in Oklahoma will morph into a politically-charged battle over government spending. Earlier Sunday, Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, said too much responsibility is being shifted to the federal government instead of states in the wake of such disasters.
On Sunday, Mr. Obama appeared to take a different view.
“When I say that we’ve got your back, we keep our word,” he said.
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