OKLAHOMA CITY -- The cooler at the Love's location on Interstate 40 in Oklahoma City became a shelter for dozens of motorists as tornadoes hit the area on Monday, reported The Oklahoman. Tornadoes ripped through the Southern Plains as storms that killed several people and injured many more blew cars off highways, toppled homes and sent baseball-sized hail crashing through windshields, said the Associated Press.
"Our Travel Stop unfortunately sustained a direct hit from one the tornados; it's pretty much gone," Love's spokesperson Christina Dukeman told CSP Daily News. "The good news is that nobody was seriously hurt. People were pulling off the road to seek shelter in the store. We brought them in and our managers got everybody into the beverage cooler and restrooms."
Although she could not confirm the exact number, she estimated that as many as 80 people went into the cooler and the restrooms. There was not enough room for the store manager and another employee, however, so they rode out the tornado crouched on the floor of the store. Although the store was destroyed, they were not hurt.
Customer Chris Moore described what happened to him. "I was sitting [in my car] under the [canopy] where the semi-trucks fill up, and then there was a police officer telling people on a loudspeaker to get in the store," he told the Oklahoman. One of the managers told people inside the store to get in the cooler.
"You could kind of see [the tornado] coming, but you couldn't tell at first whether it was going to come at us or go the other way," Moore added. "And then it was almost like it was right behind [the manager]. And she was still trying to get people in the cooler. We all huddled on the floor, and the wind came and got real loud. The roof came off; everything was blowing around."
Moore said he and the other people in the store waited a tense few minutes before feeling safe that the worst was over. He escaped with no worse than superficial damage to his car from the canopy, which struck the car as it fell, said the report.
Dukeman said that going into the freezer was part of a predetermined tornado procedure. The people "were in the safest place they could be in the store. It is an established safe area," sahe said.
The store will be back. "We are planning to demolish it, but we will rebuild it and reopen it. In the meantime, we're going to find jobs for all of the employees there," Dukeman said.
Meanwhile, customers and employees at a Sonic drive-in across the street from the Love's location also rode out the tornado in their own cooler, the newspaper said.
Oklahoma City-based Travel Stops & Country Stores Inc. is family-owned and -operated company with more than 230 locations in more than 30 states.
Click on the video above to view an Associated Press report on the tornado and Love's.Click here andhere to view additional customer and news video. Andclick here to view a photo of the "inside" of the store.
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