Samaritan’s Purse is responding to a series of vicious storms that pounded the Oklahoma City area Sunday and Monday.

Staff members are on their way to the affected area to determine how we can help the people impacted by the tornadoes that raked the area. Two Disaster Relief Units departed from our North Carolina headquarters before dawn on Tuesday.

Staff members at the Samaritan’s Purse U.S. Disaster Relief headquarters pray before two Disaster Relief Units depart for Oklahoma Tuesday morning.

A mile-wide twister pounded the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, leveling homes, businesses and schools in Moore. At least 51 people were killed, including 20 children trapped inside their elementary school when the storm hit. Authorities expect the death toll to rise.

The funnel cloud could be seen for miles, creating a debris field several miles wide. Weather officials estimated the strength of the tornado to be an EF-4 or EF-5, with winds of more than 200 mph winds. In Moore, entire neighborhoods are in ruins. Houses are reduced to debris piles, and cars and trucks are strewn along roadsides.

Samaritan’s Purse responded when Moore was hit hard by a tornado in 1999. That storm included the highest winds ever recorded near the earth’s surface, 302 mph, and killed 36 people.

On Sunday, another large tornado hit Shawnee, a town southeast of Oklahoma City, leveling several mobile homes, overturning vehicles, and killing at least one person, according to news reports.

The storms were part of a severe system that generated tornadoes in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa. Dozen of counties in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri were placed under tornado watches and warnings.

Samaritan’s Purse is also responding to tornadoes that hit Hood County in Texas on Wednesday night. Volunteers began helping in Granbury on Monday, the first day we were allowed into the affected area.

Please pray for the people impacted by the storms, and for those in danger from the severe weather. Please pray for Samaritan’s Purse as we work in Texas and prepare to help in Oklahoma.