The forecaster who sounded the alarm for Moore, Okla.
(CBS News) The massive tornado in Oklahoma on Monday killed a total of 24 people. The toll would likely have been much greater, were it not for the early warning put out by the National Weather Service. We meet the man who sounded the alarm.
A video shows Monday's twister charging into Moore, Oklahoma. The funnel cloud morphed within moments into a historic EF-5 tornado, with winds topping 200 miles per hour.
At the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma that afternoon, chief forecaster David Andra was tracking the storm.
He issued an emergency tornado warning, used only in extreme storms, for the first time in 10 years. He called for it 16 minutes before the tornado hit Moore.
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Did he know it was gong to be as severe as it was, or did he just know it was potentially trouble? "We knew thepotential existed for particularly strong tornadoes that afternoon," said Andra.
And was Andra also looking at the storm not only as a forecaster but as a husband and father? "You can't separate them. When you know what the outcome may be, your family is vulnerable just like everyone else out there," he said.
Elizabeth Farrar, Andra's stepdaughter, lives in Moore. They talked Monday morning about whether she should leave with her husband Abe and their 13-month old son Keegan. Her gut told her to leave.
"I know his tones, I know how he says things," she recalled, "and I could tell that he was concerned about Monday."
The tornado threw a construction trailer onto Farrar's roof and into a bathroom where the family might have sought shelter. Farrar came home and found the dumpster sitting on top of the baby's bathroom.
"I lost it," she said, "seeing it the way it is. I know that we don't have the type of damage that lot of other people do, but its still traumatic."
Farrar's stepfather is relieved that everyone in his family survived this. But he said it's hard for him to feel satisfied with the job he did sounding the alarm when so many people did die.
