EDMONTON – For FC Edmonton goalkeeper Lance Parker, the devastating tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma Monday is hitting close to home – literally. Parker is an Oklahoma City native.
“Lots of twisters come through every year around where I grew up,” he told Global News Tuesday.
“I’ve been under one right before it dropped, about a quarter mile away from my house, but that’s the closest I’ve ever been to one.”
“It’s a beautiful thing to look up at, but the devastation it wreaks is just incredible.”
The National Weather Service has confirmed that the tornado that tore through Moore, Oklahoma, on Monday was an EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale. The tornado travelled a 17-mile path and was as much as 1.3 miles wide.
The devastating tornado laid waste to Moore, just south of Oklahoma City. The death toll stands at 24, including nine children. Two schools were in the direct path of the twister.
“My father and my sister were up in Oklahoma City, so they were a decent ways away from it,” Parker shared.
“My mother, she was in the northern part of Norman, so she was right by Moore, about ten minutes away from the destruction.”
Parker couldn’t get a hold of her for some time after the tornado hit.
“The phone lines were down… couldn’t get text messages through until late last night, so I wasn’t really sure what happened.”
Fortunately, Parker’s family members are safe.
“It’s just absolutely incredible. You see cars, you see buildings just crushed. You can’t even comprehend how it happened.”
Parker admits he didn’t get much sleep Monday night, but he’s trying to maintain perspective.
“It’s one of those things, I can’t really do anything about, except pray and hope that everybody stays OK, all my friends and family are alright, that nothing happens to them.”
Alex Plante was drafted by the Edmonton Oilers in 2007. He’s been playing for the Oklahoma City Barons – an Oilers’ farm team – since 2010.
He’s been staying with a local family who’s been living in Oklahoma for 35 years.
Plante was driving to their home when the tornado hit.
“I called them to let them know I was coming back and everything looked fine, and not even three minutes later I called them again, and they said ‘yeah, we need to get out of here, this is bad.’”
“For me personally, they’re good friends of mine, they took me in in my time of need. I went to the rink, and I’m panicking, freaking out, how can I help them?”
Plante explains that the parents wanted to pick up their three special needs children from their schools before meeting him to find shelter.
“They were having a tough time getting them out of school because they were already trying to put them in tornado mode, but thank god they let them go,” he says.
“They met me down here at the Cox Centre where we play, there’s a parking facility underneath, so we went there.”
Plante says the damage didn’t reach the city’s downtown, and his host family’s house was spared. The children did not attend the schools that were destroyed by the tornado, but the Canadian athlete says – under different circumstances – they might have been enrolled there.
“If they were to not have their disabilities, then they probably would’ve have been,” he shares.
“Everything is just an absolute mess. There’s a lot of shaky people down here.”
He says the team is doing what it can to help in the wake of this disaster.
“We have guys here that are running to Wal-Mart and getting water and all the supplies they’re asking for, but outside of that you can’t really get in there to help out, it’s kind of dangerous.”
Wednesday, the Barons will head out on the road as part of their playoff run for the Calder Cup. Plante knows it will be hard to focus on the game.
“Mentally, we’ve got to know that there’s nothing we can do right now. We’re going to be states away. So, we’re going to have to shut that off, play, and when there is opportunity… try to contribute.”
And, he says, he hopes the team can do whatever it can to raise the community’s spirits, even just a little.
“How nice would that be to stick around, and have a championship for a city that’s going through a lot of turmoil?”
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