On Saturday afternoon I sat through an entire showing of the movie Twister; it’s my favorite terrible movie, not least because it was shot in Oklahoma and uses the plains’ beautiful scenery to great effect. I was thinking, while watching it, about how, three years after that movie came out, that exact situation played out over my hometown of Moore, Oklahoma. On May 3, 1999, one of the strongest tornadoes ever recorded struck a half mile from my mom’s house, hit my high school and went on to devastate a huge swath of the city.

Then last night, we had our first big tornado outbreak of the year. I left work when the tornado sirens started going off at about 4:40; I knew from watching the news online that the tornado was far off, and I took a chance that I wouldn’t get in trouble in the half-mile drive from my office. Brian and I sat and watched the outbreak play out for several hours after we both got home. We like to joke about how Okies go out in the yard when there’s a tornado to get a look at it; this is true, but the fact is that we’re raised with tornado safety precautions, and we know when it’s safe to look and when to get the hell underground.

When I was a graduate student I worked with a whole lot of meteorology students in my time in OU’s broadcasting department. I found them to be intelligent – brilliant, actually – and capable, and they were always some of my favorite broadcasting students. I know from thirty years of calling this state home that severe storm broadcasts do more than give us compelling footage of these awesome storms; they save lives. The death total from last night sits at 5; even ten years ago it would’ve been higher. The goal is to get it to zero; let’s hope that happens. KWTV’s Mason Dunn captured the night’s most compelling footage, of the largest tornado of the night as it formed over Lake Thunderbird.