Oklahoma has never been an easy place to live. You can go down the list: the Trail of Tears, the land rush, the Dust Bowl, the Depression, the boom and bust cycle of the oil business and last but certainly not least, being right in the middle of Tornado Alley.
Monday's storm was incredible and heartbreaking as it plowed straight through two elementary schools and a medical center, among other places.
Tornadoes around here are trivial by comparison to this thing: a mile wide, 200 mile per hour winds. Take a look the pictures in this story from the UK's Daily Mail - it looks like a nuclear bomb went off.
The hardest thing to see though are the kids at the schools. You can see disbelief, terror and absolute shock, but they are the lucky ones. Not everyone survived.
At the same time though, as always in tragedies, you see the best of people too. There are some incredibly moving photos of rescuers hugging children, of teachers taking kids to safety. You can't help but admire their composure. We're sure they haven't checked on their own houses, maybe not even their families (landlines are completely destroyed and cell usage is very much hit-and-miss).
There's a video of a remarkable elder woman who quite cheerfully says she's lost everything except for a few photos and odd and ends. "But," she says, smiling like it's a wonderful opportunity, "we get to start over."
Needless to say, folks out there are going to need lots of help. If you want to give to the Red Cross or to donate blood, we're sure a lot of people would be immensely grateful.
One stray thought: what did Native Americans do when a storm came? How did they handle tornadoes? Small shelter though a house is, it's more than a tipi. It must have been terrifying to see a storm coming. What did they do?