05/11/2008

Associated Press

At least three tornadoes touched down in Oklahoma on Saturday, causing damage in at least two counties.

There were no initial reports of serious injuries from the twisters in Pittsburg, Ottawa and Pushmataha counties.

The National Weather Service office in Norman confirmed that a tornado touched down in Pittsburg County and tracked through a rural area near the small town of Haywood before briefly passing through the southwest side of McAlester.

Television footage showed some destroyed outbuildings and damaged homes west of McAlester and near Haywood. At a glass plant southwest of McAlester, the storm apparently picked up a trailer and slammed it down on Dumpsters.

"These are rural areas that we are in," Pittsburg County Undersheriff Richard Sexton told television station KFOR in Oklahoma City. "These are good people coming together at this time."

The weather service said that storm spotters reported a large tornado near Quapaw in Ottawa County — near the Missouri and Kansas state lines. A man who answered the phone at the Ottawa County Sheriff's office refused to provide information about the twister, other than that it hit the small town of Picher, northwest of Quapaw.

In Pushamataha County about 6:20 p.m., storm spotters saw a "possible large and extremely dangerous tornado" about four miles northeast of the small community of Dunbar, the weather service said.

Parts of southeastern Oklahoma remained under tornado warnings Saturday night.