page_title: 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado
section_title: Impact and casualties
hierarchical_section_title: 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado / Impact and casualties
caption_attribution_description: The tornado outbreak of May 3, 1999, brought near total devastation to this Oklahoma City neighborhood.
context_page_description: The 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado was a large and extraordinarily powerful F5 tornado in which the highest wind speeds ever measured globally were recorded at 301 ± 20 miles per hour by a Doppler on Wheels radar. Considered the strongest tornado ever recorded to have affected the metropolitan area, the tornado devastated southern portions of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, along with surrounding suburbs and towns to the south and southwest of the city during the early evening of Monday, May 3, 1999. The tornado covered 38 miles during its 85-minute existence, destroying thousands of homes, killing 36 people, and leaving US$1 billion in damage, ranking it as the fifth-costliest on record, not accounting for inflation.
  The tornado first touched down at 6:23 p.m. Central Daylight Time in Grady County, Oklahoma, roughly two miles south-southwest of Amber, Oklahoma. It quickly intensified into a violent F4, and gradually reached F5 status after traveling 6.5 miles, at which time it struck the town of Bridge Creek.
context_section_description: Thirty-six people were killed as a direct result of the storm and five more died of indirect causes in the hours following it; most of the indirect deaths were due to heart attacks or injuries suffered while trying to seek shelter. One survivor was uninjured but died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in an apparent reaction to losing his home in the tornado. According to the Oklahoma Department of Health, an estimated 583 people were injured by the tornado, accounting for those who did not go to the hospital or were unaccounted for. A total of 8,132 homes, 1,041 apartments, 260 businesses, 11 public buildings, and seven churches were damaged or destroyed. Estimated damage costs totaled $1.2 billion, making it the first recorded tornado to exceed $1 billion. The Bridge Creek−Moore tornado produced an estimated 220 cubic yards (170 m³) of debris from the buildings that were destroyed.
  This was the deadliest tornado recorded in Oklahoma since a long-track F5 tornado killed 107 people in Woodward on April 9, 1947. It was also the deadliest tornado ever recorded in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area; the previous record was held by an F4 tornado that affected southwestern portions of the city on June 12, 1942, which killed 31 people and caused $500,000 in damage ($11.5 million in (2020 USD) when adjusted for inflation). It was the costliest tornado in U.S. history until it was surpassed by an EF4 tornado that hit Tuscaloosa and northern portions of Birmingham, Alabama on April 27, 2011, causing an estimated $2.45 billion in damage (as of 2015, the Bridge Creek–Moore tornado is the fourth-costliest tornado, having also been surpassed by the EF5 tornadoes that hit Joplin on May 22, 2011, and areas of Moore near the 1999 storm track on May 20, 2013).
  National Weather Service researchers estimated that the death toll from the storm would likely have exceeded 600 had it not been for the advanced warning through local television and radio stations and proper safety precautions being exercised by area residents. Because Oklahoma has historically been climatologically prone to tornadic activity, Oklahoma City-area television stations KFOR-TV (channel 4), KOCO-TV (channel 5) and KWTV (channel 9) – each of which provided continuous coverage of the outbreak that spawned the Bridge Creek–Moore tornado and its ensuing aftermath from the event's start on the afternoon of May 3 through the evening of May 4 – have long relied on state-of-the-art radar technology and visual confirmation from news helicopters and in-house storm chasing fleets to cover severe weather events. The three network-affiliated stations, other local media outlets and the National Weather Service also routinely conduct various tornado preparedness symposiums to ensure residents undertake precautions in the event a tornado or other severe weather affects their area.
caption: Overhead view of damage in Oklahoma City.
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