The brief tornado tore through El Reno, a largely rural suburb of nearly 17,000 people about 25 miles west of Oklahoma City, shortly before 11 p.m.
At a news conference on Sunday morning, Matt White, the mayor of El Reno, said the death toll remained at two and that 29 people had been taken to hospitals.
“We do know for a fact that they are doing surgery on some people as we speak,” White said. He added that search-and-rescue efforts were continuing.
Photos posted on social media by bystanders and reporters showed that parts of the motel, the American Budget Value Inn, appeared to be all but leveled.
“We absolutely have confirmed that all of the people from the hotel and motel are accounted for at this point in time,” the mayor said.
Tornado sirens began blaring at 10:27 p.m. on Saturday in El Reno, White said. At 10:31 p.m., the tornado struck, damaging a southeast section of the town near Interstate 40. The trailer park has 88 spots for mobile homes, White said, and the search-and-rescue effort was focusing on a debris-strewn area of about 15 sites.
The mayor, a lifelong resident of El Reno, said at an earlier news conference that emergency workers were searching the rubble for survivors. “We are all hands on deck,” White said, adding: “Pray for our community. We’ve been through a lot here lately.”
A local television news reporter, Aaron Brilbeck of the CBS affiliate News 9, showed the power of the storm as it came through the town, posting on Twitter: “The hotel across the street from us was leveled. Victims are being pulled from the rubble.”
At a convenience store called Domino across the street from the motel, the assistant manager, Jeffrey Pointer, said the evening had started quietly, with just a sprinkle of rain.
“But then it started pouring,” Pointer said. “The rain was blowing sideways. You couldn’t see anything.”
The wind blew so hard that the windows started shaking. The power cut off, and an emergency generator kicked on. Then, as quickly as it had started, the roaring wind abated, leaving only rain in its wake.
The phones in the store started ringing, he said. The callers asked if everyone in the store was all right. Then people started walking in drenched. Some had no shirts, Pointer said. Some were injured. He said a man came to him with his arm bleeding.
“He said: ‘Can you call me an ambulance? I’m hurt real bad,’” Pointer said.
In the pre-dawn darkness on Sunday, the rubble of the motel was lit up by mobile emergency lighting and the flashing red and blue lights of police and fire vehicles. Dented vehicles and mobile homes poked from the debris. At the front of the motel, a stairwell led to a second story that had been torn away.
El Reno, in the heart of Oklahoma, is only a 30-minute drive from downtown Oklahoma City, but it feels more like the countryside.
On Sunday morning, the ballroom of the El Reno chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars had been turned into a shelter for tornado survivors and was filled with American Red Cross cots. Families filed into the low-brick building throughout the night, past the restored World War II-era twin-engine bomber out front.
Nancy Salsman, auxiliary president of the El Reno VFW, said there were 25 people inside, many of them still sleeping after being up all night. They arrived quietly, and nearly expressionless, she said.
“I think they’re in shock,” Salsman said. “Some of them lost everything.”
A tornado also struck the small city of Sapulpa, more than 120 miles east of El Reno. The police department there posted a message on its Facebook page that it had no reports of fatalities and only a few reported minor injuries. Downtown buildings “sustained some significant damage,” the police wrote.
Oklahoma has been rocked by scattered tornadoes and heavy rainfall in recent days. The storms have flooded the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma, forcing officials to release large amounts of water from the Keystone Dam. But none of the tornadoes that touched down had caused major damage or fatalities in residential areas until the one that hit El Reno late Saturday.
The tornado struck a few days before the six-year anniversary of one of the worst tornadoes to ever hit El Reno. On May 31, 2013, an unusually wide EF-3 tornado — the fourth-strongest on the enhanced Fujita scale, with an EF-5 being the most powerful — tore through the El Reno area and killed eight people.
Among those who died were three storm chasers, including Tim Samaras, who was known for his appearances on the reality television show “Storm Chasers.”