Fil-Ams horrified but grateful for surviving deadly Oklahoma tornado

Filipino-Americans in Oklahoma in the United States were horrified as a massive three-kilometer wide tornado ripped through Moore City on Monday leaving at least 24 dead and 200 injured. Still, they were grateful for surviving the deadly twister. On GMA Network's "News To Go" program on Wednesday (Manila time), Dr. Paul de Guzman, a Fil-Am pastor, said “malungkot ang kalagayan ng nangyari rito sa pagkakataon na ito. Nagpapasalamat ako wala pa akong naririnig na nasalanta na mga Pilipino.” The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said there were no reports of Filipino casualties so far. “The consulate is in touch with the Filipino community as well as with the local authorities in affected areas in the US midwest,” DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez said. A Filipina recalled that the tornado whipped her home even if she lived far from Moore. On "News To Go" on Wednesday, Rose Abrogar, who was unhurt in the incident, said, “We were one mile from Moore, where the tornado hit.” "You will hear a rushing of wind but it's just a matter of seconds. It went through us,” she said, adding that her family took shelter in a closet in the center of their house because they did not have a tornado shelter, a standard for homes built after 1999. Another Filipino-American, Michael Chan, said he thought it was his last day as he experienced the force of nature. “When I exited the highway, up to the main street, I saw the tornado was huge. And I was driving right into it..,” Chan said, adding that “everything was a blur. I just ran into my house got my dog, got into my truck, I thought I was going to die with my dog.” In 1999, a class E-F5 Tornado hit Oklahoma city killing 36 and ravaging properties estimated to be worth $1 billion. The Tornado that hit Moore had a force classification of at least E-F4. Abrogar said she had relatives in Moore, the 'epicenter' of the tornado but said that they were safe. The terror tornado forced US President Barack Obama to declare Oklahoma under a state of major disaster after it flattened homes, schools, and hospitals with wind gusts of up to 199 miles per hour. Difficulting in contacting Filipinos Meanwhile, Philippine Consul General to Chicago Leo Herrera-Lim said the consulate was "having difficulty contacting other Filipinos due to power outages in affected areas." He explained that the report of a single Filipino affected by the calamity is based on limited information. On "News To Go," Herrera-Lim said, “Sa buong Oklahoma meron tayong 10,800 Filipinos, based on the 2010 census,” Lim said, adding that “Doon sa Moore, nasabi sa akin na ang mga Pilipino doon mga around 20 to 25 families.” Lim said the affected areas are usually cordoned off and consul officials help calamity responders by identifying Filipinos and translating for Filipinos who could not speak English. He added that residents of Oklahoma, a tornado alley, are known to be resilient and are used to these kinds of calamities. “Sanay sila pero they don't take it for granted. They follow instruction,” Lim explained. Most of the Filipinos in Oklahoma work in the medical profession specifically as psychiatrists. They mostly came in the US between the late 1960s to the 1990s, Herrera-Lim explained. Tornado's destructive power While the popularity of above- or below-ground shelters or reinforced "safe rooms" in private homes has grown since a deadly 1999 Oklahoma City area tornado, Oklahoma County has just 6,489 such shelters out of approximately 260,000 residential properties, according to the county's chief deputy assessor, Larry Stein. Moore, a suburb of 55,000 where most of the 24 deaths tallied so far occurred, was also hard hit by the 1999 tornado. The reasons for the lack of below-ground shelter range from the financial to the cultural to the geographical. Basements, for example, a staple of homes in much of America, are rarely built in the region. But federal and state programs have aimed to reduce the shelter gap in recent years. Shelters are "highly recommended" for storm-prone areas, according to Larry Tanner, research associate for the National Wind Institute at Texas Tech University who studies how shelters behave in fierce storms. He believes public buildings should have shelters or safe rooms in areas prone to large storms. Few have basements In the southern United States, 18.6 percent of occupied homes have at least partial basements, according to 2011 US Census data. By comparison, 84.2 percent of occupied homes in the Northeast and 76.5 percent in the Midwest have full or partial basements. In the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, 3.5 percent of occupied homes have at least a partial basement, according to the latest available Census data from 2004. Stein said basements are more common in homes built before the 1940s. "People around here really don't know how to build basements, to be honest," said David Tinsley, assessor for Cleveland County, which includes Moore. He noted that the ground has a lot of clay, and can shift. - with reports from Reuters/Andrei Medina/VVP, GMA News