Muldrow Sustains A Hard Hit

Muldrow catches the brunt of a storm that hit a little after 8 p.m. on Wednesday.  The News On 6's Carina Sonn reports the National Weather Service says that straight line winds reaching 100 miles per hour are responsible for the damage.  The storm crushed part of a car wash, swirled debris, and blew over signs.

Daylight revealed even more damage on Thursday.

"We've got extensive damage, sporadically, around town, no particular pattern, just here and there and everywhere," said Sequoyah County Emergency Management Director Chris Keathley.

Close to 500 hundred homes were knocked around by wind and hail.

"It was amazing, the wind and the noise, very frightening," said Mark Jones of Muldrow.

Jones lives in what seems to have been the storm's bull's-eye. Wicked wind ripped apart his roof, sending a shower of insulation and rain into his home.  And, it couldn't come at a worse time.  In the middle of redoing his living room, a lot of the materials and furniture were stored in this garage.

"This is $3,100 worth of bamboo flooring.  It's not supposed to be wet," said Mark Jones.

In the light of day, it's hard to imagine what happened just hours ago.  The storm is well past, the winds are gone, but the evidence is clear:  hail stones big enough and strong enough to pierce holes into a vinyl fence.

Even homes that look OK on the outside weren't sturdy enough to escape the worst.

"My office and my guestroom, but the window is busted out" said Nicole Shoemake who had two rooms in her home damaged after windows were blown out on Wednesday night.

"You could just hear it beating the door in because the winds were hitting.  We never opened this door, but it was just shattering everything in here," said Nicole Shoemake.

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