any other reasonable names, but South Janeway Avenue - clearly not my fault. Right between these two identically named streets is Little River, which is, again, really a creek, but with high, steep banks. The street going east out of the park is also named "Little River Circle", which is actually a cul-de-sac on the street's west end, right next to the southeast corner of the park. One block east (toward Telephone Road), it magically changes into 11th Street. Figure that out.

Here are several reasons I tell you all this: 1) The Irvin family (my niece and her family) live right beside the park on Little River Circle, which puts them right at the southeast tip of the park and right at the circle which is the end of the cul-de-sac. 2) The Little River Circle, as well as the neighborhood surrounding it, are not accessible from the west - i.e., from Ridgeway Street and Plaza Towers neighborhoods by foot or car short of first going south to 17th street and then coming back north again, a total offline deviation of about two-thirds of a mile. In normal times this is of little consequence, but at times like the night of May 20th, it can be a big problem.

Here are some more things I'd like to point out about the west to east line we've drawn, which I'm hereby proclaiming to be the last mile or so of the path the May 20th tornado followed (okay, roughly followed). The first quarter of this path - Ridgeway, Plaza Towers, and the area around them - was total, absolute devastation.

In the second quarter, the area downhill toward the creek, where there are lots of mobile homes, some homes survived, others didn't, and most fell somewhere in between. Again, a distinctive thing I saw in part 1 showed up again here: I had expected the mobile homes to be picked up and thrown somewhere, maybe even smashed. But what I saw looked way different than that. I can best describe it as though the tornado had sneaked inside a window, hollowed the trailer out from the inside, then left. This was an effect I was to see again, even in some of the non-mobile homes. (Maybe it wasn't that way, but that's how it seemed to me.)

The third quarter of the line, starting on the other side of the creek, and going uphill along 11th street and the neighborhood north to 4th street, going slightly uphill toward Telephone road, there were patches where the devastation was total, but also patches where the tornado had a tendency to jump over some houses, sometimes only damaging them. And finally, the last quarter of the line, near the end of the tornado's path, well, just look at the photos of the Moore Medical Center. I guess you wouldn't call it total devastation, but that was its effect. For instance, the Medical Center was left partially standing, but even that part had to be torn down; and above all else, you wonder how everyone there survived.

Okay, I think I'm finished with the geography part for now. I'll be using it in places throughout the rest of my story.

When we left off yesterday, one of the firemen had agreed to take me from right next to Plaza Towers (around the corner from my sister's house) to my niece's house on Little River circle. This ride saved me from the problem of having to circle around Little River Creek to  the south  on  foot via  17th  street.  As  I  said, that  was a  much

Now this is a powerful storm; this looks like what an atom bomb might do.

Now this is a powerful storm; this looks like what an atom bomb might do.

larger help than ordinary considering the unknown destruction along the path, the darkness, and the bicycle which I wasn't at liberty to abandon.

As it turned out, the bicycle wouldn't have done me much good had I tried to ride it to Little River, since the path there would have included the east side of Little River Creek's "South Janeway Avenue" which, due to the storm’s wreckage, would have been impassable by bicycle up to Little River Circle. And don't forget the darkness, which without headlights or streetlights was total.

After thanking the fireman, I got out onto the onto the cul-de-sac of Little River Circle (just at the southeast tip of "The Tom Strouhal Little River Park") and saw that the houses on all sides of the circle were mostly destroyed; if not destroyed, then pretty badly damaged. My niece’s house, however, looked okay, at least from the front. I arrived just as a team of firemen from some town south of Moore (I can't remember which town)  was just beginning  the process of clearing the neighborhood