As emergency workers continue sifting through the wreckage left in the wake of the devastating tornado that ripped through Moore, Oklahoma, many residents are still holding out hope that they'll be reunited with their pets.
Oklahomans have taken to Reddit in search of their missing animals, creating a Subreddit titled "missingpetsinmoore." The missing pets are mostly dogs and cats, but a few horses evidently also went missing during the Oklahoma tornado, along with an African Grey Parrot.
Posts within the Subreddit are mostly categorized with one of four tags: [MISSING], [FOUND], [SHELTER] and [DONATE]. Posts with a [SHELTER] tag direct users to locations where they can drop off found animals, and posts with the [DONATE] tag solicit donations for organizations helping to deal with the crisis.
There's nearly an equal proportion of posts with the [FOUND] tag as there are posts with the [MISSING] tag and the tone of the posts ranges from matter-of-fact to touching, to heartbreaking:
[MISSING] Please keep an eye out for my friends fur babies. Their house is leveled. They are chipped. They were around 149th and Santa Fe.
[FOUND] This sweet guy is hanging out on my front porch. He was lost around NW 16TH and Young-probably escaped during the storm. If you know who he belongs to please let me know! Also, if anyone could foster in the mean time, he tries to escape from my yard!
[MISSING] Black, Horses, This is the brand 2 of my 3 horses have on their left hip. Please let me know if anyone has any info on them. The were in the barn at Wallace horse park which is next door to Orr Family Farm / Celestial Acres.
My aunt lost animals in the tornado . Two dogs and a cat. Female blue heeler goes by the name twilight. Around 7-9 months old. German shepard around two yrs old Goes by the name jack. I do not know the description of the cat.
The death toll from the Oklahoma tornado was recently revised from 51 to 24, but authorities are still expecting to discover more casualties in the wreckage. While it's unclear how many pets were lost in the tornado, in similar natural disasters, animals have demonstrated an uncanny survival instinct.
A tornado that struck Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 2011 separated a woman from one of her three cats. While she survived the disaster with two of the felines, the third wasn't discovered until weeks later - during a televised interview, in the very house from which it disappeared.
