Severe thunderstorms roared through Lincoln County Fridaynight, causing damage to the Chandlerarea. Among the worst, a building at the historic Chandler Baseball Camp was destroyed.
The first round of storms hit the area just before 11 p.m., causing most of the damage. According to OG&E, about 17,500 households in its service area lost electricity.
Trees were uprooted along Park Road and the high school/junior high complex and in Oak Park Cemetery, all the way down 15th Street and into the Quail Run housing addition. Crews went out starting on Saturday, working to clear out debris and fix damage in order to restore power.
Full damage reports were not available before the Lincoln County News went to press.
Taylor Woodall, a storm chaser who was covering the storm live via Weather Wise and LiveStormChasing.com, was in the area from about 10:30 p.m. until 11 p.m. He said the cell caught his eye due to its classic supercell structure with a hook echo.
“I also felt it would be the most likely storm that night to sustain its strength due to it not having any other storms nearby to compete with or to steal its energy,” he said.
Woodall, who has 17 years covering severe weather, said around 10:50 p.m., he noticed a lowering and what looked to be a funnel starting. A screenshot from the video showed that it was around the baseball camp/high school area. As the storm moved closer to his location around 11:10 p.m., Woodall headed south on Highway 18 toward Sparks to stay ahead of it.
The next day, Chandler residents reached out to him, stating that they believed the funnel had touched down. After reviewing the livestream footage and weather data from that location and time, Woodall said it’s his opinion that there might have been a brief spin-up tornado.
“The NWS (National Weather Service) in Norman will likely investigate further and will have their official findings on whether it was a tornado, straight-line winds or microburst that caused the damage,” he said.
Jessica Martinez, who lives in Quail Run, was in Oklahoma City on Friday when she got calls from neighbors about a large tree in her front yard that fell over, just barely missing her house. She said it hit the corner of the roof but caused minimal damage. Most was from the storm itself, such as shingles blown off.
“I was like, thank goodness, because as big as the tree was, I was so scared that one of these days it was just going to fall on the house,” she said.