Picking up the pieces

As John Hutchison was standing on top of what was left of his house located at 714 S. Francis in Picher, Okla., on Sunday, he was none to quick to thank his lucky stars just to be standing there.

The day after a strong tornado blew through the northeast Oklahoma town and wiped out over 20 blocks of houses, cleanup began and residents started to sift through what was left of their belongings.

“I just feel blessed,” said Hutchison.

On Sunday afternoon, officials confirmed that six had been killed in Picher with the possibility that another would be confirmed at a later time.

Hutchison was one of many left picking up the pieces after a storm ravaged parts of northeast Oklahoma, northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri, leaving 21 dead as of Sunday afternoon.

Right before the tornado came through, Hutchison was in the house with his family monitoring the storm on television.

“There were five of us — me, my wife, our daughter and our two granddaughters — and we knew that we were under a tornado watch,” Hutchison said. “Our granddaughter Tressie was looking out the back window in the laundry room and said that she thought there was a tornado on the other side of the big chat pile.”

At that point, Hutchison looked to the west and saw something he could not believe.

“I looked at it for a few seconds and then I could see it rotating and it was wider than the pile over there ... it was a huge, black monster coming right at us,” Hutchison said. “I said ‘It is a tornado and we need to run and hide.’”

At that point, Hutchison and his five family members huddled on the floor inside a closet in a bedroom.

“It was not just a few seconds from when we all got in the closet that we started to feel the house moving,” Hutchison said. “The walls started leaning back towards us and you could hear all the popping and crackling.”

As it came through their house, the tornado took them, still in the closet, 70 feet, to rest next to a tree outside their house.

“Everyone of us walked out alive,” Hutchison said.

The house Hutchison lived in for 19 years, however, was a total loss, as was vehicles that were outside of the house.

So Sunday, much like his neighbors, Hutchison spent the day going through the remains of his house while his wife, Joan, was being checked out in a Tulsa hospital with a cracked rib and a bruised lung.

“She is in good spirits and happy,” Hutchison said. “All five of us walked out of this mess alive.

“We are just trying to get some personal things like stuff that we can wear. Me and the wife were both barefoot when we walked out of there, but we were all basically unharmed and alive, and that is kind of remarkable when you think about it.”

One question that was on Hutchison’s mind Sunday was the status of the Tar Creek Superfund buyout. The buyout is a program established by the Environmental Protection Agency to pay some residents of Picher to relocate because of lead contamination of the area including the adjoining Tar Creek.

Hutchison was one of those that was part of the buyout program.

“We were told that the money had been appropriated for the buyout so we are hoping that they will still go ahead with the buyout because they were going to tear the houses down anyway,” Hutchison said. “It had gotten to the point where you could not get insurance here.”

Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry assured residents during his tour Sunday that the buyout would continue as planned.

“This is disheartening and my heart goes out,” Henry said. “You want to do what you can to help and we are working to get all of the assistance we can here.”

For Hutchison, the help is great, but the fact he is still standing is the best part of it all.

“There are all kinds of people that are wanting to help,” Hutchison said. “We lost it all, but we are all still alive.”

Matthew Clark can be reached at matthew.clark@morningsun.net or at 620-231-2600, Ext. 140.