INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2015 Storm-weary Oklahoma braces for more tornadoes MOORE: When spring arrives in ologist with the National Weather drowned after becoming trapped inside Oklahoma and conditions are right for Service. her underground storm cellar. “It just tornadoes, David Wheeler and his family A few tornadoes touched down flooded with her in it, and she couldn’t don’t take any chances. Two years ago, a Friday night in Texas and Oklahoma, but get out because it was like a river com- top-of-the-scale twister tore a miles- no damage was reported. The main ing down on top of her,” police Sgt. Gary long path through this Oklahoma City threat seemed to be flooding from Knight said. “I don’t recall it ever raining suburb and turned Wheeler’s son’s heavy rains in Oklahoma. Officials like that before.” Skylyna Stewart’s body school into a pile of rubble. That’s when closed some roads, including part of was discovered in an older, under- he installed a small underground shelter Interstate 44 in Tulsa and were telling ground shelter detached from the in his garage. Now the family regularly residents in one neighborhood in home. drills on what to do if the skies turn omi- Shawnee that a lake dam was close to The 7.1 inches that fell in Oklahoma nous. “Today we’ve been nervous,” being breached. The Plains states were City was the third-heaviest rainfall for Wheeler, a fifth-grade teacher whose not the only ones with threatening any day on record, dating back to 1890, family has survived two deadly torna- skies. Twin weather systems stretching said state climatologist Gary McManus. does, said Friday. “We’ve done some dry from the Carolinas to California pro- Radar data from the part of the city runs before the spring. I made the kids duced an unseasonably early tropical where Stewart’s body was recovered go down there by themselves, and storm in the Atlantic and a late snow- indicated as much as 8 to 12 inches may we’ve done the same thing with me, the storm in the Rocky Mountains. Snow have fallen. “Part of the problem was wife and the kids, all together.” was also possible in the Nebraska that we had gotten a lot of rain earlier,” The Wheeler family retreated under- Panhandle, which could get up to 5 McManus said. “The soils were moist, ground nearly a dozen times on inches, and parts of South Dakota, and the rain had nowhere to go.” A few Wednesday night, when a powerful which could receive as much as a foot, miles away in Moore, Kelly Ruffin said OKLAHOMA: Dillan Taylor salvages items from her destroyed recreational vehicle thunderstorm that rumbled across the according to the weather service. she and her family took shelter from the in Oklahoma City. — AP southern Plains produced more than 50 Heavy rain that accompanied the last storms in an underground shelter tornadoes. The menacing clouds had round of storms has swollen Oklahoma installed in their garage when water after the 2013 tornado that killed 24 ly freak deal.” “It was a flash-flooding sit- barely vanished before forecasters creeks and rivers, dramatically increas- from the heavy rains began leaking in. people, including seven children who uation, and we got more rain yesterday began warning of another system that ing the likelihood of flash flooding as “It was a heavy trickle at first, and within died in an elementary school. In the two than we typically get in a month,” Lee could produce even more violent the next round of storms approaches, about 10 or 15 seconds, it was gushing,” years since, the city has issued more said. It’s not uncommon for an under- twisters through the weekend in parts Lindley added. “There’s a lot of standing Ruffin said. “We had to decide if we were than 3,000 storm shelter permits. City ground shelter to leak, Lee said, and he of Kansas, Oklahoma and North Texas. water out there, and these storms are going to stay down there and drown or officials estimate that about 40 percent encouraged people who have one to “We’re going to see storms that present not moving terribly fast, so they’re pro- get out, because the sirens were going of homes in Moore now have shelters, check them every few months to ensure the risk of a full gamut of severe weath- ducing a lot of water in some places,” he off. We decided to get out.” spokeswoman Deidre Ebrey said. Blake they’re not filling up with water. “It can er,” including large hail, high winds and said. One deluge was so heavy that a 43- Wheeler and his family are not the Lee of F5 Storm Shelters & Safe Rooms happen,” he said. “But it’s a really easy tornadoes, said Todd Lindley, a meteor- year-old Oklahoma City woman only ones who sought extra protection described the drowning as a “really, real- fix.”—AP UK’s Cameron won big by selling ‘stability over fear’ Conservative Party wins surprise outright majority LONDON: Prime Minister David Cameron sealed a surprise election win by persuading Britons to choose the security of modestly rising living stan- dards over an implausible pretender many feared could become the puppet of Scottish nationalists. Blending the promise of “the good life” fuelled by a strong economic recovery with fear of resurgent Scottish separatists calling the shots in a country PRAGUE: France’s far-right Front National (FN) party president Marine Le Pen attends they want to break up, Cameron steamrolled the the “Peace in Europe and prosperity after the EU” conference in Prague. — AFP opposition Labor Party and won his party’s first outright majority in 23 years. “We’ve had a positive response to a positive campaign about safeguard- Marine Le Pen gambles ing our economy,” said Cameron, as if he had always expected to win so emphatically. with political patricide The truth was different. Before it became clear he had won, some in his centre-right Conservative PARIS: By pushing her maverick father out of But others say such a public row with an Party feared he had run a dull campaign that failed the far-right party he founded four decades ageing father whose health is visibly fragile to shift apparently tied opinion polls. Others in the ago, French National Front leader Marine Le could damage the image of Marine, a 46- party, famous for ruthlessly junking predecessors Pen is banking on an act of political patricide year-old former lawyer, whose campaign such as triple election-winner Margaret Thatcher, to ensure he does not end up ruining her bid posters have sought to portray her as sympa- thought his days were numbered even if he won for power. The risk is that the 86-year-old for- thetic and caring. “The way the break-up is because he was unlikely to win big. He forgot the mer paratrooper, suspended from the party taking place ... the brutality of the process - name of his football team at one point, was on Monday over provocative comments on it’s all very violent,” said political science pro- accused of dodging TV debates, and had some- the Holocaust, does not go down quietly. fessor Pascal Perrineau. “It gives people the times struggled to hold his party together. The feud between Jean-Marie Le Pen and impression this is not quite a real party.” A Seeking to lift his game, a gesticulating and his daughter has few parallels in modern survey published by Le Monde on shirt-sleeved Cameron vehemently described him- European politics and has been compared to Wednesday underlined the ambivalence of self as “pumped up” at one campaign appearance everything from slapstick farce to “King Lear”, many to a party which has made strong widely derided by critics. But that had to be set Shakespeare’s tragedy of a father driven to gains in local elections but is still far from against Labor leader Ed Miliband’s much-ridiculed madness after turning his kingdom over to power in national government. While 69 per- efforts to convince voters that “Hell yes, I’m tough his daughters. But Marine, whose core strate- cent of respondents believed the National enough”. Cameron, guided by his Australian cam- gy since taking over the party in 2011 Front would not be able to manage the paign adviser Lynton Crosby, spent six weeks ham- involves making it more palatable to main- country, 67 percent agreed with it that there mering home just two messages: Vote stream voters, was always going to have to are too many foreigners in France. Conservative to secure economic recovery, and find a way of silencing her father before the stop Labor coming to power backed by Scottish 2017 presidential election. Mad with rage nationalists. “At first, it all gives a rather pathetic image Perrineau noted that, as a member of the Crosby’s strategy was that “you can’t fatten a pig of a party based on a dynasty,” said Cecile European Parliament, Jean-Marie Le Pen has on market day”. That meant voters were bombard- Alduy, a Stanford University professor and a platform to continue to launch invective ed with a message in the hope that relentless repe- author of a new book analyzing years of and embarrass his daughter. True to form, tition would help it “take”. “The Lynton Crosby strat- speeches by both the father and daughter. once suspended, he reacted with outrage, egy came through in the end,” one Conservative “But in the long run, if she manages the crisis saying it would be “scandalous” if his daugh- activist in Cameron’s Oxfordshire constituency, well media-wise ..