Central Oklahoma dealt with its first batch of spring severe weather last night as a surprise flurry of severe storms roared through the metro, delivering heavy rain, massive hail, and powerful twisters through the various parts of the metro.
As always, our Severe Weather Media was on top of things, tracking the storms and delivering wall-to-wall coverage to help keep Oklahomans safe and advertisers happy. For example, News 9’s Jim Gardner was on the scene and on the story in Bob Mills SkyNews Ranger 9, delivering these tornadic chopper shots:
Sadly, Jim’s coverage came with a heavy cost. Apparently, he piloted Bob Mills SkyNews Ranger 9 a bit too close to the storms and the chopper's windshield was busted out by heavy hail!
Not surprisingly, Jim wasn’t happy about flying a helicopter without a windshield. Check out this audio and video that was apparently captured on the Sky News 9 Cam that Channel 9 streams on its website:
🚨#UPDATE@NEWS9 helicopter had it windows blown out due to the large damaging hail up to golf balls to baseball size while covering a large damaging tornado pic.twitter.com/82LZ3fOpmG
While Jim was flying his chopper to Pauls Valley to meet Greg, the other Griffin Media helicopter – Tulsa’s Sky News 6 – was grounded in a hangar in Shawnee. Naturally, that hanger was hit by one of last night's tornados, totaling the chopper:
@NEWS9 reporting that sister station @NewsOn6 helicopter was in a hanger last night at Shawnee, OK. The hanger was hit with the tornado that moved through the area. “Griffin Media says the helicopter appears to be totaled”.#tornado#okwxpic.twitter.com/rgFjkzJDVw
With no time to clear out the hangar, the chopper had to park on the KFOR lawn and was barraged by the storm.
Anyway, although it was a rough night for Jim Gardner and especially our neighbors hit by tornados, at least there was some happiness in the air...
The “gay agenda” is now inserting itself into Oklahoma Severe Weather Coverage. Expect the Oklahoma legislature to investigate this next week. pic.twitter.com/xLp1FgpaPQ