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Tornado in Mustang ripped roofs off houses, overturned vehicle

A tornado in Mustang early Wednesday morning ripped the roof off two homes in the Mustang Ridge housing addition. Adding to the tornado’s toll, a pickup truck belonging to Steve and Brandee Yates was turned over on its side in the family’s front yard. A portapotty from a nearby worksite was also flung into their front yard.

The housing addition currently has many homes under construction, and the lumber the construction crews had stacked up near where the tornado touched down created a lot of noise, that some witnesses said sounded like violent rattling.

Brandee and Steve Yates woke up to a turbulent storm, but had a plan in place. Just after 5 a.m., the Yates’ went to a closet on the ground level.

“It was before any warnings came out,” Brandee Yates said Wednesday morning. “Things were hitting the windows. There was wind, lights were going on and off. The power never went out. I was afraid the windows were going to break. Things were hitting the walls and the windows. There was a lot of adrenaline, and we just kind of got everyone to the closet. My kids heard it. It woke them up. We kind of all jumped out of bed, met in the middle, and then went to the master closet. We also got our two dogs in there.”

The Yates’ next door neighbors also suffered some serious structural damage, especially to their roof and a fence in between the two homes.

“They suffered some pretty substantial damage to their home, but that was about it,” Brandee said. “We heard their house alarm going off afterwards.”

After 20 years living in Moore, infamous for its misfortune with tornados, the Yates’ felt the effects of the natural disaster for the first time after moving to Mustang.

“We’ve had them all around us, but they never hit our house,” Brandee said. “It could have been so much worse. Fixing the house is going to be difficult. It shifted the beams inside the attic. A two-by-four almost came through the roof in my kitchen. There was damage all the way to the center of the house. It shifted everything. We don’t really even know the extent of the damage yet. I’m afraid, especially in the garage, it looks like the roof could cave in.”

Some of the Yates’ neighbors also felt the effects to a lesser extent, with one family suffering some fence damage, and one family lost its trampoline.

Wendell Reed, one of the Yates’ neighbors, said it was just about 5 a.m. when he heard the noises get insistent.

“We just heard a loud boom, and I got up,” Reed said. “My wife asked me what it was, and I told her I didn’t know. I didn’t hear any sirens, so I just thought it was wind, and maybe hail. Then, my son ran in and said, ‘Dad, my trampoline is gone.’ We still don’t know where it is. I’m going to go looking for it here in a little bit. Somebody told us part of it might be at the middle school.”

Fortunately, nobody was hurt.

1 Comment

  1. Carter on October 15, 2021 at 1:47 am

    I appreciate good journalism and the empathy that comes with a true journalist. This guy has that gift.

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