This video was part of a live feed on Facebook on Saturday. Initially, the storm chasers can’t see the massive tornado crossing the road in front of them. Then the power flashes illuminate the twister. About halfway through the video, a huge chunk of truck falls from the sky and the family narrowly miss it.
MARIETTA, Okla. – Listen to the terrifying moments as an Oklahoma family realizes they are driving into a tornado and are pelted by huge metal debris.
We will start with the good news: No one was injured.
“I just want to let everyone know we are safe,” Jesse Rossi wrote on his Facebook page after the event. “Dorothy, a.k.a. my car, is not.”
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Father daughter storm chasers talk to FOX Weather after narrowly avoiding catastrophe when an EF-4 tornado tore across Oklahoma. They were done chasing and trying to get home when a huge chunk of debris fell from the sky.
National Weather Service storm survey crews rated this tornado, which struck Marietta and killed one person, an EF-4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, marking Oklahoma’s first EF-4 twister since 2016. It plowed a 27-mile path through the city just 90 miles north of Dallas. At one point, the damage was 900 yards wide along that path, more than seven football fields from end to end.
Father Daughter Storm Trackers
Rossi and his 12-year-old daughter started storm chasing last May, according to the Marietta Monitor. They livestream their adventures and post videos on their page “Father Daughter Storm Trackers.” That’s exactly what they were doing on Saturday evening while following huge storms through a Tornado Watch area.
“There must be a thousand storm chasers out here. We are in a line of cars a mile and a half, two miles long,” you can hear Rossi say in an early video while the sky was still light.
“Looks like it’s trying to put down something, but it’s not doing a very good job of it,” he said on video about a wall cloud. “Come on baby, drop one for us. That one kind of petered out on us.”
Video shows his daughter, named Stormy, armed with a cell phone, another family member and Rossi’s wife.
“Alright, we’re going to head on home. I don’t like chasing in the dark,” Rossi said. “You can’t really see much.”
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With the dark skies, the family couldn’t see that they were headed toward a tornado.
(Father and Daughter Storm Trackers via Storyful)
No luck seeing tornadoes, the family thought
The family stopped for a fast food dinner and tornado sirens went off.
“Headed home, just a heads-up, there was a tornado just went through Ardmore,” Rossi said as he resumed posting videos. “When we sat down, tornado sirens went off outside. This is my last live video. I caught the tail end of the tornado. I could hear it, but I couldn’t see it. Everybody stay safe.”
But the family’s videos were not done for the night. The next video showed a black sky and rain pelting the windshield. You could hear panic in the wife’s voice as she called home to her other kids, presumably home with a young babysitter. Her voice is interspersed with Rossi’s giving warnings for the livestream. She told the sitter that a friend was headed for their home.
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Damage seen the next morning in Marietta, Oklahoma.
(Love County Sheriff’s Office)
“So that way there’s an adult there with you in case the tornado hits hard,” she said. “If it gets any worse, you’ll get to the shelter.”
Rossi called his father to watch the radar and guide the family car.
“Walk us through, get us home. I don’t want to run headfirst in this tornado,” he asked. “I don’t want to be rushing home to make sure our kids are okay and then get picked up (by a tornado).”
The pitch-black road continued ahead with a storm raging overhead. This is where the video above starts.
“What’s falling from the sky here?” Rossi asks on the video.
“I don’t know,” his wife responded. “We have rotation of something.”
Then the power flashes illuminated the EF-4 tornado in front of them.
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The tornado tore apart electric lines, creating power flashes that showed the family that they were heading into the tornado.
(Father and Daughter Storm Trackers via Storyful)
“Oh, we got a tornado right in front of us,” yelled Rossi.
“We got to get pulled over,” the wife pleaded as an enormous chunk of metal from a truck landed in front of them. They hit what looked like part of a tractor trailer.
“We’re coming off exit 15 and there is a tornado right here. And s–––’s flying everywhere,” the wife said as she yelled expletives into the phone. “It’s tearing s––– apart everywhere. We just ran over some pieces of truck. I think the car is f––––– up.”
“Baby, we’re okay, we’re okay,” Rossi said, trying to comfort her.
“Oh my god, there are trucks everywhere and cars turned upside down,” the wife yelled into the phone. “The Valero’s gone, Carl’s Jr. sign, Dollar General, gone.”
A look at the Dollar Tree distribution center in Marietta the following morning. Posters on the site said they found “tons” of pool noodles, presumably from the building, 20 miles away.
(Love County Sheriff’s Office)
Her tone changed, and she said to her daughter in the car, “Hush, baby. Calm down, calm down. Give me your hand. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe, Stormy. You’re okay, baby. Just pray, baby. Just pray.”