OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Looking around at the devastation it's hard to believe the optimism now engulfing a south Oklahoma City neighborhood pounded by a devastating late-night tornado on Nov. 3.
The neighborhood sits along SE 85th Street and Woodbend Drive in Oklahoma City. Almost every home was destroyed or suffered significant damage. According to the Oklahoma City fire department, at least 100 homes in the OKC metro were impacted by weekend storms.
On November 3, neighbors walked up and down the street, checking on each other and offering words of encouragement, lending a hand to help with clean-up, or searching for salvageable belongings.
Vagner Lima and his wife had just gone to bed after seeing a concert. He tells 2 News he had barely shut off the light when their phones started blaring a tornado warning and the house started shaking.
Lima said they started running for the storm shelter they had just installed on their garage floor but never made it. Instead, they took shelter under a tipped-over dishwasher as their house blew apart around them.
"You always think you can make it to your shelter," Lima said, "now we know sometimes you can't and it's terrifying."
Nearly everything they own is gone, but they are grateful they are alive and that their kids stayed at their grandparents that night. The tornado completely destroyed the room where their kids would normally be sleeping.
Lima and his wife picked through the debris Nov. 4, but didn't find much they could salvage beyond her passport.
"Every time we see it now, it's a little more nerve-wracking," he said.
As he spoke to 2 News, the emergency horn on his overturned truck beeped and its lights flashed. He hasn't been able to shut it off because the storm left the truck precariously tipped up on its side.
Something he and his wife could do was their neighbors tight After they crawled out of the rubble of their home, the neighbors broke their own window to pull the Lima's to safety inside their house.
Residents of the neighborhood tell 2 News they know they have a long road ahead to recovery, but that's okay because they have each other to lean on to get there.
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