'There's just no rest' as new twisters kill 5 in tornado-traumatized Oklahoma

The full scale of the destruction wrought by five new tornadoes that plowed through the Oklahoma City area will only be apparent in the light of day Saturday. The fresh twisters Friday evening killed at least five people, less than two weeks after a monstrous tornado maderubble of the town of Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City. "We really needed a break after last (week), and there's just no rest," said city spokeswoman Kristy Yager. In all, 17 tornadoes were reported in the Midwest. The number will probably change when officials conduct storm surveys Saturday, said Kurt Van Speybroeck, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. And while the twisters damagedhouses in Missouri and Illinois, the brunt of its brute force was reserved for Oklahoma City and its surrounding areas, including El Reno and Union City. Among the five reported deaths Friday were a mother and her child, officials said. At least 71 others were injured. The storm system swatted downpower lines and uprooted trees. It flicked big rigs on their sides, and yanked off part of the terminal roof at Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport. One twister tore open Kris Meritt's parent's brick house likea carton, sucking out everything inside and tossing most of it onto the lawn. It spared the walls and part of the roof, then moved on to raze the house next door to the ground. The parents returned to survey the damage, but had to rush off when as another tornado was headed their way. Keepsakes from his childhood lay out on the grass. "It's a sombering thing to think about life, and to see all your memories just tossed about," Merritt said. "Everything from your childhood on up." In Moore, the storm system strew salt in the wounds of residents still picking up the pieces from the previous disaster. "There's damage everywhere," Moore's Mayor Glenn Lewis told Anderson Cooper. Most of his devastated town wasblacked out. The flooded streets made it hard for him to drive thetown to search for new ruins among the old ones. "I can't even get home to see if my house is OK," he said. Motorized panic Though the tornadoes were not as strong as the EF-5 twister thatkilled 24 people on May 20, fear drove some people into their cars to flee, ignoring warnings not to drive. Officials described parts of Interstates 35 and 40 near Oklahoma City as "a parking lot."