STROUD — The reminders can be seen in newspaper front pages and clippings, framed and hanging in some of this town’s cafes and shops.
Friday will mark the 25th anniversary of a tornado that churned through Stroud, destroying its outlet mall, significantly damaging its hospital and leaving emotional scars for many.
The town had no power for a week after the storm, and cleanup took weeks after that, said City Manager Bob Pearman.
While there were no deaths or serious injuries in the storm — unlike other areas in the state — Stroud, with a population of about 2,700, in some ways has yet to still fully recover.
“For as much physical damage that it did, … no serious injuries or loss of life. We were pretty lucky,” Mayor Tommy Smith said.
The Great Plains tornado outbreak of May 3-4, 1999, was the largest ever recorded in the state, with more than 70 tornadoes that killed 40 people in Oklahoma and five in Kansas, according to the National Weather Service.
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It also resulted in a total of at least 775 injuries.
The outbreak resulted in more than $1.5 billion in damage to homes, businesses and churches across the region. That figure would be $2.8 billion in today’s dollars.
Among the most devastating of the tornadoes was the May 3 Bridge Creek/Moore/Del City tornado, which killed 36 people, injured at least 583, destroyed or damaged more than 8,100 homes, businesses and churches, and caused $1 billion worth of damage. It was the sixth-deadliest tornado in Oklahoma history, categorized as an F-5 in those years before the Enhanced Fujita Scale was implemented in 2007.
Among the dozens of other tornadoes that tore through the state on May 3 was an F-3 that leveled Stroud’s Tanger Outlet Center on the north side of the Turner Turnpike/Interstate 44.
An F-3 tornado, under the old Fujita classification system, had wind speeds of 158–206 mph; under the EF scale, it would have been categorized between an EF-3 (winds 136-165 mph) and an EF-5 (winds of more than 200 mph).
“Nobody coming to work in our office that (Monday) morning … was expecting that to be the biggest day of their career,” Rick Smith, warning coordination meteorologist with the NWS Norman/Oklahoma City forecast office, told the Tulsa World in 2019, the 20th anniversary of the outbreak.
“There was the potential there, but nobody — nobody expected that kind of an outbreak,” he said.
The Stroud tornado began just southeast of the community of Davenport and went about 8 miles northeast, crossing and then running nearly parallel with the Turner Turnpike for at least a mile before decimating the mall on the north side of town.
The area — visible to drivers on the turnpike just north and east of the exit to Stroud — remains a concrete parking lot, with grass and wildflowers poking out from its cracks.
It has streets still marked “Tanger Drive” in a wide circle in the abandoned area, according to Google Maps.
Pearman was among many residents whose homes were directly in the path of the tornado, but his was not significantly damaged.
“It’s amazing that his house wasn’t taken out,” Smith, the mayor, said.
Stroud, founded in 1892, is located almost exactly between Tulsa and Oklahoma City. It has rebuilt since 1999, and there are signs of growth.
The high school has a new baseball stadium and a state-of-the-art auditorium. The hospital has been improved and is adding a new surgery wing. Housing is being built on the south side of the turnpike. The city is recruiting businesses to its two industrial parks, Pearman said.
But the former outlet mall area remains vacant, with plans for it in limbo.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” Mayor Smith said. “I know Bob (Pearman) gets a lot of calls about it.”
The two said part of the former outlet mall’s land is now owned by the Sac and Fox Nation.
The Stroud-based Native American tribe operates a casino about 6 miles directly south of central Stroud on Oklahoma 99/U.S. 377.
For a while, there was talk of the tribe’s possibly building another casino and hotel at the former outlet mall site — and other rumors of another outlet mall being built there — but those concepts have yet to go anywhere, the city officials said.
Pearman said the city has partnered with the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority for a service road to be built on the north side of the turnpike.
“The westbound exit is going to be on the north side of the turnpike, so it’s going bring people out right in front of where the mall property is,” he said.
“People seeing that, … our hopes of the service road was the visual opportunity because the turnpike would cause some development,” Pearman said.
“Hopefully, that (vacant property) changes in the near future,” he added.
Diana Stobaugh, owner of D’s Specialty House and Catering, 507 W. Fourth St., has owned and operated restaurants and catering businesses in Stroud since 1987.
She laments the many jobs that were lost when the outlet mall was destroyed and its economic impact on the town.
“It was devastating,” she said. “That’s when everything seemed to go downhill with Stroud. We had several (businesses) pull out and leave our town, and it was just hard for everybody.”
“It was a really rough time. The best thing was we didn’t have any deaths. That was something.”
Stobaugh said she would like to see something built at the former outlet mall site.
“I would like to see another development … that can give a lot of jobs.
“Our (restaurant) business, I mean it boomed when that mall was here, and then after that, it just stopped.”
“It’s been hard for Stroud since that happened,” she said.
However, her restaurant — located at a different location since 1999 — had dozens of people ordering slices of home-made pie or eating fried chicken and meatloaf offered at its buffet when she spoke to the Tulsa World during its lunch hours last week.
And both Stroud’s city manager and mayor remain upbeat about the future of the town, which is along historic Route 66.
“We’re an hour’s drive or less from two-thirds of the population in Oklahoma,” Pearman said.
“We’ve got great firemen. Our schools are excellent, … and we have really good people here. That is the most important thing.”
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