Nightmare in Tornado Alley | The Aftermath With Journalist Holly Bailey | 4

Summary

Against The Odds Podcast: Nightmare in Tornado Alley | The Aftermath With Journalist Holly Bailey

Episode Date: July 28, 2026
Host: Cassie De Pecol
Guest: Holly Bailey, journalist and author of The Mercy of the Sky: The Story of a Tornado
Theme: Reflecting on the 2013 Moore, Oklahoma EF5 tornado through the eyes of a hometown journalist, examining trauma, community, tornado culture, and resilience.

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Episode Overview

In this deeply personal and insightful episode, journalist and author Holly Bailey revisits her experiences reporting on the devastating EF5 tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma in 2013—a disaster that claimed 24 lives, including 10 children. Drawing both on her professional expertise and her roots in the town, Holly discusses the tornado’s enduring physical and emotional aftermath, the unique weather culture of Oklahoma, and the remarkable resilience of Moore’s community. The discussion also delves into storm preparedness, media’s role, the trauma endured by survivors, and how the town rebuilt—both structurally and emotionally.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Returning to Moore After Disaster (00:08–04:15)

• Setting the Scene: Holly describes Moore as a typical, close-knit small town: “You would see people cruising on Friday nights... it felt very quaint and people often moved to Moore because the schools were known to be very good.” (Holly Bailey, 02:03)
• Devastation Witnessed: Upon returning, landmarks were destroyed: “It was kind of like a moonscape... trees, you know, there were no branches, there were no leaves. And then just odd sights of like a car wrapped in a tree.” (Holly Bailey, 02:50)
• Memorable Detail: The haunting image of “cupboards... open and you could still see the dishes in there, like undisturbed, even though the house was destroyed.” (Holly Bailey, 04:21)

2. Growing Up Under Tornado Threat (05:27–07:44)

• Life “At the Mercy of the Sky”: Holly reflects on local attitudes: “You know, you lived at the mercy of the sky and that's a very real thing.” (Holly Bailey, 05:33)
• Tornado Drills: Drills involved kneeling in hallways with hands over heads—seen in retrospect as laughable given the tornado’s power: “You know that this weather can be dangerous... but it doesn't really hit you until it actually happens to a place that you know and recognize.”
• Shelter Scarcity: “Most people just didn't have shelters. I mean, more people do now, but not back then.” The sandy ground precluded basements. (Holly Bailey, 06:44)

3. Personal Memories of Oklahoma Storms (07:44–08:47)

• As a Latchkey Kid: Holly recounts a terrifying childhood storm, guided by iconic meteorologist Gary England via TV: “Gary England was like, go in the bathroom, get in the bathtub. And I did that... it didn't hit. It went over. But like it was terrifying.” (Holly Bailey, 07:44)

4. The Role and Legacy of Meteorologist Gary England (08:47–10:59)

• Pioneering Weather Coverage: England revolutionized live TV storm coverage, introducing radar graphics and urgent warnings—à la the famous “beep” and county maps now ubiquitous nationwide.
• Saving Lives: “He pushed KWTV to get a Doppler radar... He began issuing warnings ahead of the National Weather Service at times... But at the same time, it saved so many lives.” (Holly Bailey, 09:04)

5. Storm Tracking and Warning Systems (10:59–13:09)

• Advanced Preparation: Oklahoma TV dispatched helicopters and teams of storm chasers: “They keep a safe distance but often track the tornadoes for the entire duration... there was, I think, 20 minutes warning, at least for many of the places that were hit or in the path.” (Holly Bailey, 11:19)

6. School Tragedy and Changes in Policy (13:09–14:06)

• Timing: Tornado hit earlier than expected, just as school was letting out. Now schools may preemptively close for severe weather, a policy shift prompted by this disaster: “Now... they will call a severe weather day and just cancel school and kind of treat it like a snow day. That didn't used to happen before this tornado.” (Holly Bailey, 13:15)

7. Storm Chasing: Professional and Amateur (15:19–18:22)

• Mixed Feelings: The El Reno tornado (a week later) highlighted the dangers for chasers, both scientific and amateur: “A lot of people were trying to... get around it and get away from it... it became close to three miles wide.” Notable deaths included researcher Tim Samaras. (Holly Bailey, 15:31)
• Storm Tourism: Debates arose about limiting so-called storm tourism, but with live-streaming and YouTube, hobby chasing has proliferated.

8. The Plaza Towers Elementary Disaster (18:22–23:30)

• Amy Simpson, Principal: “She recalled this mother and father who had come to get their kid... They looked to the west and they froze. And they immediately ran back towards the building. And that's when she knew that the tornado was right there on their doorstep.” (Holly Bailey, 18:34)
• Experience of Impact: In the hallway, Simpson announced: “It's here,” then sought shelter holding a plumbing pipe in her office bathroom. “She peered up and saw a blue sky and was like, that's when it ended.” (Holly Bailey, 20:00)
• Aftermath: Simpson’s calm in the immediate aftermath masked overwhelming stress and trauma: “She was just trying to hold it together, and that was kind of what she felt her duty was.” (Holly Bailey, 21:56)
• Physical Destruction: Holly describes the school site as “just like a bomb had gone off... it just looked like a pile of bricks and debris.” (Holly Bailey, 23:02)

9. Teacher Heroics and Survivor’s Guilt (23:30–25:45)

• Jennifer Doan’s Story: The third grade teacher protected children with her body, suffered a broken back, didn’t lose her unborn child, but developed “tremendous survivor’s guilt.” Hearing storm sirens or wind became traumatic triggers: “She described wearing noise canceling headphones in order to get through even the fear of hearing the wind blow.” (Holly Bailey, 23:47)
• Lasting Trauma: Holly notes, “Storm trauma is a very real thing in Oklahoma,” affecting adults in particular, but eventually impacting children too. One surviving child later died by suicide—his family linked this to storm trauma. (Holly Bailey, 25:55)

10. Reporting on Tragedy as a Journalist (27:36–28:30)

• Personal Toll: It was harder to cover devastation in her own hometown: “It's terrible what happened to Moore. You know, it's rebuilt, but a lot of people still are hurting after that storm many, many years later.” (Holly Bailey, 27:44)

11. Community Resilience and Remembrance (28:30–32:41)

• Memorials: Emotional memorial ceremonies, with kids showing more visible resilience than adults. “The person was crying. The child was like, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay.” (Holly Bailey, 28:41)
• Rebuilding: Plaza Towers was rebuilt with storm shelters; memorial benches honor the seven students lost. (Holly Bailey, 29:58)
• Graduation Tribute: For the class when the seven would have graduated, survivors carried lanterns: “These are the kids that should have graduated... they and this town, this community have continued to go on and be resilient.” (Holly Bailey, 31:41)
• Urban Renewal: Tornadoes sometimes serve as reluctant catalysts for city redevelopment, with the risk ever-present: “They gamble and say, it can't happen again. And so far it hasn't, thank goodness.” (Holly Bailey, 29:58)

12. Tornadoes as Atmospheric 'Last Frontier' (32:41–34:13)

• Scientific Mystery: “There's still this unknown question of why some storms develop these tornadoes and some don't.” Despite improved warning systems, the science is far from complete. (Holly Bailey, 32:51)

13. The Human Side of Meteorology (34:13–35:24)

• Gary England’s Empathy: After deadly tornadoes, England reviewed autopsies to learn how people died, advocating for helmet use. “He even got an obituary in the New York Times.” (Holly Bailey, 34:18)

14. Living With Ongoing Risk (35:24–36:54)

• Family Not Leaving: Despite close calls and property loss, Holly’s family remains in Oklahoma: “None of my family is going anywhere because of this.” (Holly Bailey, 35:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You lived at the mercy of the sky and that's a very real thing.”
  (Holly Bailey, 05:33)

• “It was kind of like a moonscape in some ways, because it was just everything destroyed... when you see it in person, it just tells you how dangerous the winds were.”
  (Holly Bailey, 02:50)

• “Gary England saved so many lives by the way he sort of pioneered TV weather forecasting in Oklahoma City.”
  (Holly Bailey, 09:04)

• On storm trauma:
  “Storm trauma is a very real thing in Oklahoma, and that's something that even the national weather service and scientists have tried to study more and more.”
  (Holly Bailey, 25:55)

• On community resilience:
  “They and this town, this community have continued to go on and be resilient.”
  (Holly Bailey, 31:41)

• On her family’s perspective:
  “It's Mother Nature. You never know what's going to happen. You just have to be careful... But none of my family is going anywhere because of this.”
  (Holly Bailey, 35:33)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Moore’s Devastation Described: 00:08–04:15
• Tornado Preparedness & Growing Up: 05:27–07:44
• Gary England's Impact & Weather Media Culture: 08:47–10:59
• The Day of the Tornado: 13:09–14:06
• Storm Chasing & El Reno Incident: 15:19–18:22
• Plaza Towers Elementary Tragedy: 18:22–23:30
• Teacher Survivor’s Guilt & Trauma: 23:30–25:45
• Community Recovery & Memorials: 28:30–32:41
• Tornadoes as Scientific Enigma: 32:41–34:13

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Tone and Language

The tone throughout is compassionate, reflective, and at times somber—matching the gravity of the tragedy and the resiliency of those affected. Holly Bailey’s word choices are vivid, empathetic, and often personal, blending a reporter’s clarity with a local’s heart.

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Takeaways

• The 2013 Moore tornado dramatically reshaped not only the physical landscape of the town but its collective psyche.
• Media culture in Oklahoma around weather coverage is unique and life-saving, with pioneers like Gary England.
• Trauma from such disasters is pervasive and multilayered, affecting survivors—especially children—for years.
• The process of grieving, rebuilding, and memorializing blends sorrow with hope, revealing profound communal strength.
• Despite improvements in science and safety, nature’s unpredictability makes tornadoes one of weather’s greatest mysteries and challenges.

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For listeners seeking a compelling, human-centered account of disaster, trauma, and enduring resilience, this episode offers an unflinching and ultimately hopeful portrait of life after the storm.

Transcript

[Audible Announcer]

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[Cassie Depechel]

Just a Note this series contains references to suicide if you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health. We have included resources at the end of the episode and in our show notes from Audible Originals. I'm Cassie depechel and this is against the Odds. Imagine driving down a street in the neighborhood where you grew up. You know it well, except this time it's unrecognizable. Six story high, transformers are bent and twisted, trees have no branches, and many homes are gone. All that's left of them are empty concrete slabs on the ground. That's how my guest, writer and journalist Holly Bailey, found the town of Moore, Oklahoma on May 21, 2013. She went back there the day after an EF5 tornado devastated the community. The tornado killed 24 people, 10 of them children. As a journalist, Holly had covered war zones as a White House pool reporter and also the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But this time she turned her reporting closer to home. Holly reported on the deadly Moore tornado and wrote about it in her book, the Mercy of the the Story of a Tornado. Holly Bailey welcomed to against the Odds.

[Holly Bailey]

Thank you for having me.

[Cassie Depechel]

So, Holly, you went to school in Moore, a few miles from Oklahoma City where you lived. What are your memories of going to school there long before the tornado hit?

[Holly Bailey]

Well, Moore was this quiet bedroom community of Oklahoma City. It was this, you know, kind of typical small town usa, as cliche as that might sound. But it was. You would see people cruising on Friday nights and it was, you know, a town nestled in among farm fields. Now those farm fields are full of housing additions and it's growing and growing. But back then it felt very quaint and people often moved to Moore because the schools were known to be very good. But it was just a very small, sleepy town. People always said, well, it feels like, you know, everybody. I mean, that's not exactly true, but that's kind of what it felt like.

[Cassie Depechel]

So fast forward to that day. You drove back into Moore right after the tornado hit. What landmarks did you look for and what did you see as you drove into the area?

[Holly Bailey]

Well, I have to say, you know, when I was a kid, my mother hated driving on the interstate in Oklahoma City because it was always under construction. And so she always took these back roads. And on this day, I have to say I was extremely grateful for that because everything was blocked off. And so I had this back way and more that I took from the airport I had gotten a rental car. I had watched the storm, ironically, on television the day before because there was live video of it. And as I was watching it, I was like, that's where I grew up. And so I went there the next day and, you know, I drove these back roads. They were still generally open. There's a lot of landmarks you sort of recognize when you're driving from Oklahoma City to Moore. There's these really giant electrical towers. There's these radio towers for KMA radio that have been there forever. One of the oldest radio stations in Oklahoma City. And I remember turning down this road and it felt like everything that I thought used to be there was gone. But I knew it was the road that I had always driven on. But it was kind of like a moonscape in some ways, because it was just everything destroyed. And trees, you know, there were no branches, there were no leaves. And then just odd sights of like a car wrapped in a tree, which, you know, you can see pictures of that, you can see that, but when you see it in person, it just tells you how dangerous the winds were.

[Cassie Depechel]

Wow. When you're there, I think it's a whole different thing than just seeing it in a movie or, you know, imagining it.

[Holly Bailey]

Exactly. I turned into this neighborhood that I had passed and I remember seeing a house that just had cupboards that were open and you could still see the dishes in there, like undisturbed, even though the house was destroyed. It's just this odd thing. And that's the kind of thing I think you see in tornadoes a lot. And no one can really explain why that happens.

[Cassie Depechel]

Foreign.

[Audible Announcer]

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[Holly Bailey]

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[Audible Announcer]

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[Cassie Depechel]

As a kid, how did you and your family live with the threat of tornadoes? Did you do a lot of drills to prepare?

[Holly Bailey]

You know, my grandmother always used to say, and this is why I called the book this, she always said, you know, you lived at the mercy of the sky and that's a very real thing. You know, as a child growing up, I remember going outside and to me, storm clouds in Oklahoma were so beautiful. You would see these big giant Towering thunderclouds rise up on the horizon. And I remember just sitting outside and watching them right roll in, right until it began to rain and the wind began to pick up. And I would be forced to go inside. And I remember you would kind of have drills about storms, not unlike a fire drill, but instead of going outside, you would go into the hallway, you would get on your knees, you would kind of kneel towards the hallway wall and. And put your hands over your head. And that was to protect your head from any kind of falling debris. And now it's kind of laughable to think about that kind of thing because you can see what these storms do. But I think most people that grow up in Oklahoma sort of grow up with that. You know that this weather can be dangerous, and you know that this weather can kill you and destroy your things, but it doesn't really hit you until it actually happens to a place that you know and recognize.

[Cassie Depechel]

Did a lot of your friends and family have, like, storm shelters or anything at their home?

[Holly Bailey]

Not really. You know, this is one of the things that's interesting about Oklahoma in that in the aftermath of this tornado, a lot of people asked, well, why didn't people have storm shelters? Part of it is because the ground in Oklahoma is sandy, and so people don't have basements, which would typically be a place where people go. But most people just didn't have shelters. I mean, more people do now, but not back then. You know, people often look at places of the country where destructive weather hits, and they say, why would they live in a place where something like that could happen? But I think people never question about leaving because they think, well, Mother Nature's going to get you anywhere. And in some ways, you know, they're right. They often cite hurricanes that hit the east coast or fires and earthquakes, and so they just kind of ride it out and cross their fingers and pray it's not going to hit them.

[Cassie Depechel]

Yeah, you haven't lived through a large tornado, but you've said you do remember a really bad storm when you were about 10 years old. What can you tell us about it, including how you got through it?

[Holly Bailey]

My mom was a single mom and worked, and I was so I was a latchkey kid. And I remember the storm hit. She was working late, and it hit in sort of the early evening. And I, of course, was watching television, which is what most people do, you know, when these storms happen. And, you know, Oklahoma City weather stations are. Television stations, are very serious about weather coverage there. And there was a meteorologist, Gary England who was telling people to take cover. In hindsight, the storm wasn't anything compared to what you see now. But I was terrified. It got really dark outside. I remember going on the porch and looking at the clouds and it was turning like a strange green color, which is one of the things that they tell you to look for. And as a 10 year old, I was just terrified. Gary England was like, go in the bathroom, get in the bathtub. And I did that. And it didn't hit. It went over. But like it was terrifying.

[Cassie Depechel]

We featured meteorologist Gary Englund in our series and you interviewed him for your book. Here's an April 2012 clip of him on the air for Oklahoma's KWTV, Channel 9.

[Holly Bailey]

There's a Titanic circulation, extremely dangerous, moving directly toward you guys in Cherokee and points in between.

[Audible Announcer]

The wind velocities are extreme.

[Holly Bailey]

This is going to be a long track tornado, at least for a while here.

[Cassie Depechel]

Can you tell us a bit about Gary Englund and what meteorologists like him mean in a state like Oklahoma?

[Holly Bailey]

Yeah, Gary Englund is a legend, a hero if you mention his name. I mean, it's hard to think that anybody that lives in the Oklahoma City television market doesn't know who he is. And many people know who he is from beyond Oklahoma just because of the many storms that have been covered there in the national news. But he was the same really pioneering TV meteorologist. And part of the reason that I wrote the book is that I didn't just want to tell the story of what happened in Moore, but I wanted to talk about just this incredible weather culture that exists in Oklahoma, especially in media coverage. The Oklahoma City TV stations cover weather unlike any other television market in the country. And it's partly because they kind of have to because it's been so prone to severe weather. But Gary England was, he was hired by kwtv and he really touched modern TV weather forecasting as you see it in the rest of the country. When you look at when a storm happens in a city and you see a little map at the bottom of the screen that talks about counties that are under warning or the little beep on your TV screen. I mean, he did that, he started that and other television stations around the country adopted that. He also was somebody that was really intense about trying to sort of get out warnings, even, you know, before warnings were issued. And he pushed KWTV to get a Doppler radar, which back then was unheard of because it's a lot of money. But they were one of the first television stations in the country to have one. And he began issuing warnings ahead of the National Weather Service at times. And there's mixed feelings about that, and especially in this modern environment where now a lot of private companies do that. But at the same time, like, it saved so many lives. I mean, Gary England saved so many lives. By the way, he sort of pioneered TV weather forecasting in Oklahoma City.

[Cassie Depechel]

Gary England was able to put eyes and ears in the field as he tracked tornadoes. KWTV had a helicopter and storm chasers. Just generally, can you describe how the team would have tracked the storm's progression on May 20, 2013, and how England covered it when he realized it was aiming?

[Holly Bailey]

And the schools, you know, one of the things that's really, some would say, crazy about the Oklahoma City TV market is that they are so intense about covering weather that they dispatch helicopters in the sky to chase tornadoes. And in the 2013 tornado, one of the people that was flying for Channel nine was a helicopter pilot who had gotten his start in LA and he covered, you know, OJ's white Bronco. And now you imagine he's now chasing tornadoes. But they keep a safe distance, but often track the tornadoes for the entire duration. And in some cases, you know, some of these storms are on the ground for hours, which is crazy, you know, and they also have storm chasers that are on the ground multiple, and they surround things on all sides. And the 2013 tornado happened during what was kind of a multi day severe weather outbreak. And so the day before, there had been a tornado that had erupted and sort of made its way to the east of Oklahoma City. And when I talked to Gary England, I remember him, and it's, it's so vivid. He recalled stepping outside that morning and he said it felt like the Gulf of Mexico was on my doorstep. And that was a reference to how humid it was. And he knew almost immediately that it was going to be a bad weather day. And so the television stations, all three of them, the three major television stations, had all their storm teasers ready. They positioned them to the south of Moore, where they were projecting the storms to rise up. And the tornado as it developed, there were people watching it and there was a lot of advanced warning, which is great. You know, tornadoes used to be where you had very little warning time, they would just erupt. But now, and in this storm, there was, I think, 20 minutes warning, at least for many of the places that were hit or in the path.

[Cassie Depechel]

Once it became apparent where the tornado was headed, why weren't the schools dismissed and the kids sent home?

[Holly Bailey]

One thing that's interesting about this tornado that wasn't common is it hit earlier in the day than most tornadoes at the time did. And now I think people look at this and think, well, tornadoes hit anytime. Well, that wasn't, you know, regarded back then. And so no one really considered that they thought it was going to happen after school hours. And what happened is that it hit, it started rolling into more right at the end of the school day when it was really, really already it was raining and hailing and already sort of bad. And so now there's lots of differences in how the schools in Oklahoma handle storms like this. When it looks like it's going to be a really bad severe weather day, they will call a severe weather day and just cancel school and kind of treat it like a snow day that didn't used to happen before this tornado.

[Audible Announcer]

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[Cassie Depechel]

In our series, we depicted professional storm chasers like Val and Amy Castor. But storm chasing has become a popular amateur activity as well as how do Oklahomans feel about storm chasing? Hobbyists?

[Holly Bailey]

I think there's a lot of mixed feelings, especially after what happened in 2013. And it wasn't just the way that the Moore tornado was covered. About a week later, there was a really bad tornado in El Reno, Oklahoma, which is mostly rural city west of Oklahoma City, a little bit to the northwest of Moore. And that storm was crazy. It started in a farm field, basically, and you had a lot of storm chasers out there, scientists, amateurists. The Weather Channel was out there chasing because a lot of people were already in town covering the aftermath of what had happened in Moore. And so a lot of people were on the roads, and this storm almost turned into what people have described as a storm that seemed to deliberately stalk people. It kind of merged these two separate cells merged into one. At one point, it became close to three miles wide, and that's wider than the island of Manhattan. And so if you just think about that, and if you see videos of that day, you can't even really see the tornado because it's so wide. It takes up the full breadth of the camera frame. But a lot of people were trying to sort of get around it and get away from it. And there was a car full of esteemed scientists, including Tim Samaras, who was a renowned tornado researcher. He and his team would often get out and chase tornadoes because they put sensors in the middle of a field to measure wind. And all of that was a part of trying to understand why some storms create tornadoes and why stormstorms don't. But this tornado basically kind of did a loop. It was going one way, and then it just turned on them, and they were unable to get away. And Tim Samaris, who knew the danger of something like this, it just overtook them, and they died. And afterwards, Oklahoma debated even legislation to sort of limit, you know, try to crack down on sort of what some people call is like, storm tourism, because there's a lot of groups that get out there and chase these things. But it didn't go anywhere. And I would argue there's been some recent storms where it's a lot different. Now, looking at storm coverage, you have a lot of people who have YouTube channels that feature live streaming coverage from people on the field. And you look at some of these maps, there's an app where you can pinpoint who's out there. And there's just so many people. Even in these rural areas, it feels so dangerous. Because the thing about a tornado is you can look at it, and it could be going one way, and then it, like, will turn and come right at you. And that's the lesson of what happened to El Reno. And there's been a lot of close calls recently. And I think while people are grateful, they want to get close, they want to see what these storms do as you try to understand them more and why they erupt. But it also just feels very dangerous at times.

[Cassie Depechel]

Yeah. So we spoke earlier about the devastation you saw as you drove into Moore the day after the tornado hit. What can you tell us about the schools, especially Plaza Towers Elementary?

[Holly Bailey]

There were two elementary schools in the path of the tornado that were totally destroyed, including Plaza Towers elementary, which was kind of this older school building. I think it was built in the 60s or 70s, a one story brick building. It was at the end of the school day. But, you know, this weather was so crazy that a lot of people, you know, parents were late in picking up their kids and also just they didn't want to dismiss and put people on buses to go home to an empty house where a storm was coming. And some people felt like it was more safer, but it emerged that was in the direct path. And one of the people that I talked about in the book was Amy Simpson, who was the principal at the time of Plaza Towers. And she told this very vivid story. I mean, she had been monitoring the weather all day, throughout the day. It looked like it was the worst of the weather was going to happen after school was let out, when people were more safely at home. But increasingly it looked like it was just going to collide with the end of the school day. And she recalled parents racing in to pick up their kids so they could drive out of the path. And she recalled this mother and father who had come to get their kid. And they had just exited the front office, and she was watching them on the sidewalk, and they looked to the west and they froze. And they immediately ran back towards the building. And that's when she knew that the tornado was right there on their doorstep.

[Cassie Depechel]

What did Amy Simpson tell you about how she handled things as the tornado hit?

[Holly Bailey]

You know, talking to her about the moments leading up to it, it's so visceral. She described hearing it, and people described hearing the sound of a roar, like a train. She could feel sort of the ground rumbling. She said it smelled like grass. And one of the crazy details about this tornado and how strong it was, you know, there were winds measured well over 200 miles an hour. The tornado was so strong that when people looked at the path afterwards, it sucked blades of grass out of the ground. The kids were in the hall taking the position as I sort of described what I'd been doing when I was a kid. You know, people were in the hall, kneeling down, covering their heads. And she went on the intercom and she said, it's here. And then she ran into the. There was a small bathroom in her office, and her administrative staff was in there. Another teacher was in there. And they held onto a plumbing pipe, which is something that they tell you to do when you're sort of hiding in a bathroom like that. Because the thought is that if you hold onto the Plumbing, it's much more rooted in the ground, and it'll stabilize you. And so they did that, and. And they were holding onto this pipe and looking down, and it hit them. And, like, she described these, like, incredible winds and stuff peeling away from around them. And at one point, she peered up and saw a blue sky and was like, that's when it ended. But when she emerged from her office, everything that she had known was gone. And she did not know at the time, like, how many people were okay. People were starting to stream out of the building. And she was trying to keep this mental count of who she didn't see, you know, who was missing. And it was just kind of this overwhelming experience.

[Cassie Depechel]

You saw Amy Simpson speak at a press conference the next day when you were in Moore covering the tornado's devastation. What do you remember about how Simpson responded in the immediate aftermath?

[Holly Bailey]

I remember how calm she was. I mean, she clearly was deeply emotional, but she was so calm. You know, I met her afterwards, and I spent a lot of time with her, and I realized that she was just trying to hold it together, and that was kind of what she felt her duty was. She was the principal of the school. In the heat of the storm or the moment of the storm, she had been trying to think of how to best protect the kids in the building at the moment when the storm hit, and she knew every single one of them, and she regarded them as her kids, and she was trying to keep her teachers calm. And when I was writing the book, I tried to put myself in the shoes of people that were in these moments, and you just can't. It's like, unbelievable stress.

[Cassie Depechel]

Yeah.

[Holly Bailey]

And you're fearing for the lives of everyone around you. You're fearing for your own life. And she's such a hero and really tried to keep it together, and I think didn't really deal with the trauma of the moment until well after the fact, after she took care of everybody else.

[Cassie Depechel]

Did you see the schools as you covered the aftermath of the tornado? And what did the scene look like?

[Holly Bailey]

I did see the school. I had gone to school, like, directly across the street from the neighborhood where Plaza Tower was. And so I knew the area very well. And when I drove up the road, you couldn't recognize the landmarks, and it basically just looked like a bomb had gone off. And you could see some remainders of what looked like brick walls, but it didn't look like a school. I mean, it just looked like a pile of bricks and debris.

[Cassie Depechel]

Another person you interviewed was third grade teacher Jennifer Doan. She threw herself on top of her students to protect them and was badly injured by a falling wall. This happened while she was two months pregnant. What did she tell you about the experience and how it affected her?

[Holly Bailey]

She's another incredible hero of the story. I mean, she threw her body on top of students. Some of them were not even in her trying to protect them. You know, a wall fell on them. And she recalled these just horrific moments where, you know, the storm passes and she could feel movement around her. And as they waited and waited for people to come and dig them out, she could feel movement less and less, which was so traumatic for her. And she had severe injuries, including a broken back. And she didn't lose the baby that she was carrying, which is a miracle. But I think she's in some ways the most emblematic of what happens when you live through something like this. She felt tremendous survivor's guilt. She questioned why she wasn't able to help the kids that had. You know, there were seven kids that died at Plaza Towers, and most of them were in the area where she was because of this wall that fell on them. And so she felt extreme guilt for the children who had died. And she also, in the aftermath, she really suffered a lot of trauma in that. In Oklahoma, they test storm sirens every week. And so when she would hear a siren, she would tense up and feel scared. She described wearing noise canceling headphones in order to get through even the fear of hearing the wind blow in some ways, in of weeks, a couple. Oklahoma, which is. In Oklahoma, the wind blows constantly. And so she really has worked through it in recent years. She returned to the classroom ultimately, but like, she suffered a lot of trauma as a lot of people in that building did.

[Cassie Depechel]

The tornado that hit Moore left people with more than just physical scars. You mentioned the trauma that teacher Jennifer Doan felt. Can you speak to how the tornado affected other people?

[Holly Bailey]

I think a lot of people felt exactly what she did. I mean, it was after this. There was this fear now. And it's not that the fear wasn't there to begin with of a storm like this, but it was the realization that something like this could happen. I remember Amy Simpson telling me at one point, the children are the resilient ones. It's the adults who are really suffering. And in the immediate aftermath, it seemed like that was true because a lot of the little kids, they showed up at the memorial services and such, and they were shaken, but the adults were kind of falling apart in many ways. But as time went on, the trauma started emerging. In different ways, it was the fear of hearing the storm siren, the fear of the wind. A lot of the children like Jennifer Doan had to wear noise canceling headphones to deal with some of that and undergo counseling for the fact that some of their classmates hadn't made it. Storm trauma is a very real thing in Oklahoma, and that's something that even the national weather service and scientists have tried to study more and more. It's a thing that the national weather service meteorologists talk about every spring. And they talk about it to the local television stations to remind them that this is a thing to be very careful about, how you talk about storms, because it can be so triggering for people. In a very, very sad story, one of the children who had surv later committed suicide many years later, and his family has blamed the storm. They said that he just never recovered in some ways, that he never felt joy in his life after that. And they've mentioned that in calling for sort of more mental health resources to help people who have survived storms like this.

[Cassie Depechel]

What has it been like for you as a reporter to cover such devastation and trauma? What do you have to do to keep going?

[Holly Bailey]

I think journalists, whatever kind of news they cover, and I've covered a lot of really horrific things, mass shootings and just other devastating things. I think in the moment you just want to focus on the story. But I'm a journalist that kind of tries to put myself in the shoes of people that I write about. I like to try to imagine what it's like for people. And it's very hard. And I think especially the storm was very tricky because it's like, you know, I've covered a lot of really horrible things. I mean, I saw New Orleans underwater when I was covering the bush White House. It feels different when it's a place where you grew up and it's a place you understand so well. It's terrible what happened to Moore. You know, it's rebuilt, but a lot of people still are hurting after that storm Many, many years later.

[Cassie Depechel]

The community of Moore held a memorial on May 20, 2014, the first year anniversary of the tornado. What did people do to mark the occasion and what was it like?

[Holly Bailey]

I was at the memorial for Plaza Towers. It was actually kind of a double thing where they have a like graduation ceremony for some of the classes. And Plaza Towers had, since it had been destroyed, they were operating out of a temporary school building on the east side of town. And the adults had done everything they could to make this as normal of a school year as possible for these kids. And Amy Simpson had put a lot of care into this. And they have the ceremony, and she played Prince, I remember. And it was part of. It was joyful. But there was also this moment where they marked the loss of the people who didn't survive these little kids. And I just remember very vividly the adults just having a hard time and really struggling to get through it. And I remember standing. I was behind an adult holding a hand with a child, and the person was crying. The child was like, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. And it really spoke to how what Amy Simpson had talked about, you know, how the kids were so much more resilient and were able to sort of process this in a way that the adults weren't at the time.

[Cassie Depechel]

Yeah. More rebuilt after the destruction and not for the first time, New schools were built with shelters in them. How did the school memorialize the seven

[Holly Bailey]

students who died outside Plaza Towers, which they did rebuild, and they rebuilt a gymnasium that was also double. That's designed to withstand the winds of an F5 tornado, which is what the Moore tornado was. But out front, they have these sort of cement benches for every child, and it marks the lives lost. And every year, Moore stops and memorializes this moment. And if you go to Moore now, it's only people that know what happened that would really be able to tell. And having grown up there and having covered the storm, there's signs everywhere. You see trees that never grew back. Normally they look like slings shots, in a way. And that's always the tell of a landscape. And you see it all over the country, actually, throughout Alabama and such that of communities that have survived things like this. But essentially it's been rebuilt more as one of these. It's kind of like any suburb now in America. It's growing and growing on the path of the tornado. New houses have arisen, more commercial development. You know, I remember one of the city leaders of Moore telling me that tornadoes in the way for the city had become this kind of like, twisted urban redevelopment. Because they've been able to rebuild the city better every time. And there's always this recognition that with every storm, the city has grown, and that's much more people in the way now. And they gamble. Just as many people who've lived in any kind of path of a storm like this, they gamble and say, it can't happen again. It can't happen again. And so far it hasn't, thank goodness.

[Cassie Depechel]

What did the school district do to mark the year when the seven students who died would have graduated.

[Holly Bailey]

Well, they would have graduated from South Lake High School in Moore, which was about a mile away from where Plaza Towers once stood, or the old Plaza Towers stood, I should say. And the kids that survived when they graduated, they had a ceremony, a traditional graduation ceremony, but there were kids carrying lanterns to mark the kids that should have graduated. And it was a very moving ceremony. The principal got on stage and explained, not that he really had to, because everybody sort of knew what that was, but he explained, you know, that these are the people that should have been here. These are the kids that should have graduated. And we remember them. And Jennifer Doane went back and attended the services and saw these kids who survived. And it's very much, you know, every year, anybody who was in that building, they mark may as this moment of what happened to them and this thing they survived. But also they try to mark, you know, remember those who were lost. And they and this town, this community have continued to go on and be resilient.

[Cassie Depechel]

You quote a scientist saying that tornadoes are the last frontier of atmospheric science. There's so much we still don't know about them. Why is that?

[Holly Bailey]

When people think about tornadoes, I think they think that there is this so much of a greater understanding, but there still really isn't. I mean, one of the great things the advancements has been in warning times. I mean, now the National Weather Service and the Storm Prediction center are able to say, you know, with some degree of certainty, days ahead of time that something bad could happen. And then when storms develop, there is so much more warning time than there was even 10 years ago. But there's still this unknown question of why some storms develop these tornadoes and some don't. And that's why you still see scientists out in the field trying to capture measurements and throwing sensors in the path of these storms to measure things to try to understand this question. It is a definitely a different culture now than even 10 years ago. I mean, you know, you can download a very exact radar app in your phone and you're able to look at your own radar. And people in Oklahoma are such professionals in some ways about these storms. They know what a mesocyclone is, they know what a hook echo is, which is people use to describe, you know, what storms look like when a tornado may develop. But there's still just so much we don't know and still so much more to go to understand why these things happen.

[Cassie Depechel]

What did Gary England do after the 2013 tornado? And more in El Reno?

[Holly Bailey]

One thing that's very interesting about Gary England is how personally he took these storms. It wasn't just his complete obsession to stay on air and to warn people as much as possible. After every tornado that he covered that killed people, he would go and pull autopsy reports and see what exactly had killed people. And a lot of it was head injuries. A lot of it was getting impaled by things. And so in his coverage, he would often say, wear helmets. Engelman had already been close to retirement. He had been on air for decades when the Moore tornado happened. But after El Reno, he acknowledged when I saw him that summer that it had been really heavy for him. And a few months later, he retired. But just like everybody in Oklahoma, he was very active and still on Twitter, he would call out storms. And he ultimately passed away in 2025. But to the testament of who he was and how important he was, he even got an obituary in the New York Times.

[Cassie Depechel]

And finally, you still have family in Oklahoma. They're not leaving because of the weather. What's it like for you, keeping tabs on your family each tornado season?

[Holly Bailey]

It's a tradition. It's gotten easier, I will say when I see a storm. I mean, I'm I weather aficionado. I have a fancy radar on my phone, an app, and I see when it might be bad weather, and when it is, I often watch the Oklahoma City television stations from afar and keep tabs on where storms are going, because that's just what it has been like for me. My mother has ridden out a couple storms, one that came very close to her house recently. My aunt, I talked to her several months ago, and she was telling me that she wishes that she would have known how often her home would be in the path of tornadoes, but neither one of them are going to leave. I mean, one of the funny stories, it's not funny, but one of the stories that emerged in 2013 was that a tornado had hit her home the day before the Moore tornado. It took a roof off, but then her neighbor's house had been untouched. But then the next day, there was a lightning storm. A bolt of lightning hit the neighbor's house, and it burned to the ground. And it was this crazy story. And she basically said, you know, it's Mother Nature. You never know what's going to happen. You just have to be careful and be aware that this stuff can destroy you and everything you own. But none of my family is going anywhere because of this.

[Cassie Depechel]

Well, Holly Bailey, thank you so much for speaking with us today on against the Odds.

[Holly Bailey]

Thank you so much for having me.

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[Cassie Depechel]

from Audible Originals. This is the final episode of our series Nightmare in Tornado Alley. In this episode we discussed suicide and depression. If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting. 988 produced by Audible I'm your host Cassie Depechel. Polly Stryker produced this episode, engineered by Sergio Enriquez, original theme music by Scott filon Velasquez and 2K for freeze on Sync series produced by Emily Frost Managing Producer Desi Blaylock senior producers Andy Herman and Austin Reckless Executive Producer for Audible Jenny Lauer Beckman, Head of Creative Development at Audible Kate Nevin, Head of Audible Originals North America Marshall Louie Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC Sound Recording Copyright 2026 by Audible Originates LL.