Residents Shaken By Twister's Fury

Charlotte Jeffries' oldest sister planned a trip to Oklahoma City on Wednesday. She was coming from Sacramento, Calif., to help her widowed sister prepared for a neighborhood garage sale next week.

But Monday evening, Jeffries' Eastlake Patio home was flattened, and she has nothing for sale.

"It's gone. It's all gone," she said, tearfully.

The neighborhood, in the area of SW 119 and Western, made up mostly of retired residents, is only about 7 years old.

Jeffries believes everyone she knows escaped alive, which she said is a miracle considering the rubble they crawled from after the tornado came through.

She and her cocker spaniel, Poppy, were rescued by neighbors about 15 minutes after the tornado hit.

With nowhere to go, nothing to drive and the scent of gas hanging in the air, she and Poppy walked away from the scene, heading for the nearest shelter.

Halfway to Graceway Baptist Church, a mile away, two women stopped to give her a ride.

Shaken, bruised and wet, Jeffries, the language coordinator for Moore schools, sat in the bleachers in the church's gymnasium, pondering what to do next.

"I have a son in Kansas City that I should call and a brother in Okarche. And I should call my sister. But I just want to sit here," she said.

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