![\"\"](\"https:\/\/globalfutures.asu.edu\/futurevoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/08\/Max-Broderick-2-scaled-e1597875899650-150x150.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nThe Event: <\/strong>On May 20, 2013, a category EF-5 tornado \u2014 the highest rating on the Fujita scale \u2014ravaged Moore, Oklahoma, with 210-mile-per-hour winds. Twenty-four people died, including seven children, who perished under a collapsed school wall. Twelve hundred homes, schools, businesses and a hospital were damaged or destroyed, amounting to $2 billion dollars in property loss in the area, which lies outside of Oklahoma City. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For Max Broderick, the weather forecast<\/strong> in Moore didn\u2019t look good that day. A large, potentially violent tornado was on its way to his hometown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \u201cWe get an average of two to three tornadoes a year in Moore, so I was prepared,\u201d remembers Broderick, who is now a 30-year-old staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force. \u201cI was up to date with local National Weather Service announcements, and I knew the day before the estimated time and day the tornado was going to hit Moore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Broderick didn\u2019t know where the twister would touch down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had just come back with my wife, Sheridan, from a four-week postpartum visit to a doctor with our baby girl,\u201d Broderick says. \u201cAs the weather got worse, we decided to leave our house and drive away. We were away for 10 minutes, and in the meantime, the house was gone. Only the kitchen wall and the kitchen counters were standing when we returned. Everything else was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tornado, which traveled through the Oklahoma City metro area, left a wound 17 miles long and about one mile wide on the ground. It destroyed everything that came in its way, including 300 homes, two schools, several businesses and the Moore Medical Center hospital, which was totally ravaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDebris from demolished and damaged structures was scattered everywhere,\u201d Broderick says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luckily, since Broderick and his wife were unhurt, they were able to help their neighbors, many of whom were injured or whose houses were buried under the rubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy wife drove injured people in our truck to get help because ambulances couldn\u2019t get onto our streets,\u201d Broderick says. \u201cI searched for anybody who needed help. I pulled survivors out of the rubble, and a few that did not make it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moore is situated amid \u201ctornado alley,\u201d a swath of land in the middle of the country that sees an excess of tornado activity. So much so, that some Moore residents \u2014 estimated in the hundreds \u2014 left town in the 2013 tornado\u2019s wake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Brodericks didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAfter one year, we had a new house at the same place, where the old house once stood,\u201d Broderick says. \u201cBut with one distinctive difference \u2013 the house is safer than the old one, because we have a 5-foot-deep, 12-foot-long and five-foot-wide storm shelter under the garage floor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Should another devastating tornado strike, the first responders know where to look for Broderick and his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe law requires us to register the shelter with the city,\u201d Broderick says. \u201cUnderstandably, the tornado seasons after the one in 2013 were hard for my wife. I haven\u2019t had a need to go in, but my wife has.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, Broderick believes that a tornado won\u2019t hit an exact target twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201dI know there is no science behind my opinion, but I trust my logic,\u201d Broderick says. \u201cIf you look at the history in Moore, our previous house had been lived in since the 1970s and it never got hit before. During the same time period, other parts of the city got hit while it experienced two devastating EF-5 tornadoes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, Broderick has no plans to leave town in the future. Nor does he have a view of whether current changes in climate have an impact on the intensity or severity of the tornadoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Broderick did learn one thing in 2013: \u201dThe tornado was an eye-opening experience in the sense that everything you are familiar with can change so quickly. It also confirmed what I have always believed in. I still put people above things \u2013 you can always replace things, but not people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Kirsi-M. Hayrinen-Beschloss<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voices from the Future | Max Broderick The Tornado The Event: On May 20, 2013, a category EF-5 tornado \u2014 the highest rating on the Fujita scale \u2014ravaged Moore, Oklahoma,","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,18,20,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-support","category-north-america","category-tornadoes","category-voices"],"uds_featured_image":{"id":264,"alt_text":"massive-tornado","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":1024,"height":309,"file":"2022\/01\/massive-tornado.jpg","sizes":{"medium":{"file":"massive-tornado-300x91.jpg","width":300,"height":91,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/globalfutures.asu.edu\/futurevoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/01\/massive-tornado-300x91.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"massive-tornado-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/globalfutures.asu.edu\/futurevoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/01\/massive-tornado-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"massive-tornado-768x232.jpg","width":768,"height":232,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/globalfutures.asu.edu\/futurevoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/01\/massive-tornado-768x232.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1","keywords":[]}},"post":172,"source_url":"https:\/\/globalfutures.asu.edu\/futurevoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/01\/massive-tornado.jpg"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n