Thousands raised for family of 4-month-old who died after Oklahoma tornado
HOLDENVILLE, Okla. (KOCO/KAKE) -- People are working hard to help out their fellow Oklahomans as debris from last weekend's tornado outbreak sits unmoved near Holdenville.
A longtime Holdenville resident told KOCO 5 that he received a call of high concern that he didn't want to hear after the storms hit.
"My daughter, they were up there," Kenny Davis said. "She called me at 11 or 10 (p.m.) saying they couldn't get a hold of them or find the little girl."
He said he's related distantly to the 4-month-girl, who Hughes County Emergency Management officials said died Sunday morning.
A search for the 4-month-old went on for hours after Saturday night's tornado. Police got a call for help around the same time in Davis from another one of the family members, saying they needed help finding her.
"We were unaware of any other victims at the time," Lt. Tanner Owens, with the Holdenville Police Department, said. "We just happened to see them when they were out in the field. It's a good thing we got out there when we did."
Police said the baby was separated from her parents about 200 to 300 yards away from her destroyed home.
"There wasn't anything standing," Owens said. "The tallest structure out there was just the grass."
He and another officer had the difficult and dangerous task of navigating washed-out county roads to get the baby's parents to a hospital.
Now, the town is supporting one another. Owens estimates that more than 100 people turned out to search for the baby.
"Any loss, it hits the town very hard because everybody knows everybody here," Owens said.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family, the Skeen family. Nearly $55,000 has been as of Tuesday morning. The page says the storm picked up their home and threw it 200 yards with the family still inside.
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