TORNADO TERROR; DOZENS DIE AS SERIES OF TWISTERS LASHES HEARTLAND.

Byline: Arnold Hamilton The Dallas Morning News

Powerful storms tore through Oklahoma and Kansas on Monday, killing at least 30 people, injuring hundreds and destroying whole neighborhoods.

One tornado described as a half-mile wide swept across central Oklahoma, where the death toll was at least 24. At least six people were reported dead in Wichita, Kan.

The Oklahoma casualties included at least four people confirmed dead in Midwest City and eight in the Bridge Creek community southwest of Oklahoma City. Highway patrol officials were reporting several more fatalities along the storm path, said state emergency management spokesman Ben Frizzell.

In Oklahoma City alone, hundreds of homes were destroyed, officials said. Four other communities to the south and east of Oklahoma City also reported damage from the storm, including Chickasha, Tuttle, Moore, Amber and Pocasset, said Frizzell.

At least one of the tornadoes that hit Oklahoma City was believed to be an F5, the most powerful classification of twister, with wind speeds exceeding 260 mph.

Jill Fraim, spokeswoman at Midwest Regional Medical Center in Midwest City, didn't have an estimate on the number of injured coming to her hospital, but said it was at least 100. ``They are coming in all the doors,'' she said.

``We are getting so many injuries we are just tagging them and bringing them in,'' said Shara Findley, a spokeswoman for Hillcrest Health Center in Oklahoma City. ``We're getting everything you can think of.''

In the town of Moore, southwest of Oklahoma City, residents could see only debris in all directions.

Oklahoma City police set up a perimeter covering an area of about 25 square miles and urged people to stay out. That did not include a large area east of Interstate 35 that suffered heavy damage.

Police and emergency workers combed through the debris as darkness fell, searching for survivors. Twisted and crumpled cars littered interstates 40 and 30.

In Del City, near Tinker Air Force Base, one resident told reporters for KTVY-TV that his house was destroyed as he and his family hid in a hall closet.

``We heard a pretty huge rumbling. The rafters started falling, the roof started falling on us. The house is completely gone. The roof is completely gone. The car is completely gone. The neighborhood is pretty well gone, for two or three blocks on every side, the houses are gone,'' he said.

When he emerged from his hiding place, he found, instead of rooms and walls, five smashed cars sitting in the wreckage. In the yard, a 45-foot-tall oak tree had been uprooted like a tomato stake.

In some places, people were reporting being overcome by fumes from broken natural gas mains. A spokesman said Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. was working to shut off gas to a wide area.

The tornado that hit Oklahoma City was part of at least three storm systems that formed over a five-hour period, beginning in southwest Oklahoma and stretching northeast. Damage was reported with some of those Oklahoma storms, but none was as devastating as the one that tore through the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

At one point in the deadly evening, three separate twisters at least a half-mile wide were on the ground simultaneously across the state.

Piedmont, a town northwest of Oklahoma City, appeared late Monday to be in the path of its second tornado of the day. One tornado reportedly hit near Piedmont about 8:30 p.m.; less than two hours later, a tornado warning had been issued for the area again.

Shortly after 10 p.m., a mile-wide tornado was reported to be on the ground just north of Guthrie, along Interstate 35 about 40 miles north of Oklahoma City.

Frizzell said the twisters' path ``began to the southwest in Chickasha and went all the way into far northwest Oklahoma City north and west of Midwest City. And we've still got them coming. We just had tornado warnings, tornadoes sighted and confirmed in Kingfisher and Lincoln counties,'' he said Monday night.

Tinker Air Force Base remained without power Monday evening, Frizzell said. Phone service and power also were knocked out across the storm's path, which stretched more than 80 miles, he said.

``I drove through one of the areas of Midwest City along the Interstate 40 corridor near Tinker. It's very serious,'' Frizzell said. ``Several of the hotels and several apartment buildings that back up to those hotels appeared to be destroyed. Roofs are gone and some of the second floors had severe damage, and that's just what I could see in the dark.''

The first storm hit about 5:20 p.m. in Kiowa and Caddo counties and then ripped northward into the Oklahoma City suburbs, he said.

``It basically skirted the south and east side of Oklahoma City,'' Frizzell said.

A police dispatcher in Cement said authorities in Chickasha and surrounding Grady County began calling for help from any available law enforcement from surrounding counties about 9 p.m. Monday because of the extensive damage there.

Gov. Frank Keating authorized the National Guard to provide whatever assistance was needed.

In Chickasha, ``It was like maybe two miles from us. You could see the tornado from the store,'' said Misty Gaither, 23, a clerk at Loves Country Store. ``It was craziness.''

In southwest Oklahoma City, 74-year-old Katherine Burch surveyed the damage after the storm destroyed about half the house where she has lived for 20 years. She waited it out in the bathroom.

``I knew it was coming because I could hear it and it kept getting closer,'' she said. ``I thought, Oh, my gosh. I heard it, the house started shaking and then the big rumble. Glass and everything flew in it.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) Residents of a south Oklahoma City subdivision search through debris for survivors of a tornado that hammered the area Monday.

Mike Harmon/Norman Transcript

(2 -- color) An Oklahoma woman huddles with her two children as a tornado approaches.

J. Pat Carter/Associated Press

(3) A tornado, estimated at more than a half-mile wide, approaches Newcastle, Okla., with deadly force.

Paul B. Southerland/Daily Oklahoman