Photo Album | GPS Track

On May 6, 2024 a tornado dipped and destroyed along a 41 mile path across Osage and Washington counties. The cyclone ripped a pathway up to 1,700 feet wide, peaking at EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, with winds of 166–200 miles per hour. It killed two people in Barnsdall, Oklahoma and caused extensive damage there.

Bartlesville had tremendous luck with the tornado. As it reached town, the storm intersected with a squall line. That weakened it considerably to EF1 and it tracked along the Caney River floodplain that separates Bartlesville into two populated areas. So the most significant damage to structures was in the southwest, to the south of 20th Street, atop Circle Mountain, and in the northeast of the city near the old Tuxedo community, damaging buildings near the intersection of Tuxedo and Washington boulevards.

The tornado ripped across the most scenic area of the Pathfinder Parkway trail system between its entrances on Shawnee and Polaris, marked C and D on my map of the trail system shown below.

For eight weeks, volunteers and city crews worked to clear the trail system and address tree damage that could harm pedestrians. The city parks department had portions of the trail blocked off, but they reopened everything on June 27. So on the morning of June 28, I walked from the Shawnee Avenue entrance at the new Agricultural Center to the Polaris Drive entrance at Silver Lake Road to document how things have changed.

That section of the Parkway is among the most heavily travelled, probably because it had some of the best scenery with large overhanging trees along the floodway and the large pedestrian bridge across the Caney River. For the sake of this narrative, I’ll show the Parkway from the Polaris Drive entrance, walking west and north to the Shawnee Avenue entrance.

Polaris Drive/Rotary Shelter

There was no apparent damage at the Polaris Drive entrance off Silver Lake Road, which has the Rotary Shelter.

I passed the shifted barrier that had been blocking this part of the trail system.

I didn’t have to walk far to see an area where crews had to clear damaged trees.

The area around the concrete culvert that crosses a small creek was unscathed.

But just west of there a large tree had shattered.

Crews had labored to clear multiple trees that had been damaged.

One of the Bird Trail signs along there had been bent; later I would find one that was completely destroyed.

Here is a shot from the eastern approach to the pedestrian bridge over the Caney River in September 2022 compared to one from June 2024:

I am so glad that the pedestrian bridge was spared, with even the saplings around it undamaged.

My own board on the bridge remained undamaged, along with the many others.

The river views from the bridge did not appear to be greatly changed.

I spotted a large tree west of the pedestrian bridge that crews had to cut.

Most of the tree had been pushed to the other side of the trail.

One large tree had collapsed, but thankfully away from the trail.

The most startling change was along the entire length of what I call the “east-west straightaway” where the trail leading north from the pedestrian bridge turns to head almost due west until it turns due north at what I call the “wetlands”. This was where the Pathfinder directly traversed the central destruction zone.

The area used to have some of the tallest overhanging trees along the pathway, but it is now far more open to the sky. Here is what the straightaway looked like in 2012:

And here is what it looks like now:

The change is quite startling.

A bench along the straightaway took a beating, but it was still functional.

The other area that is greatly changed is the small wetlands at the west end of the straightaway. That low area is often flooded, and the pathway briefly changes from 8-foot-wide asphalt to a narrower concrete path.

There has always been an oilfield road there that wound around the east side of the wetland to reach some pumpjacks. Before, that road was greatly obscured by trees, but now it is quite visible as it crosses the denuded landscape.

Here is another comparison, of walking along the narrow concrete sidewalk across the wetland in 2020 versus today:

This was probably the most dramatic change for me.

North of the wetland the trail crosses a deep gully, which was filled with debris while one of the stripper well pumpjacks accessed by the oil road appeared undamaged.

Just yards away, both a bench and a Bird Trail sign had been destroyed.

The friendly Kissacks, parents of some of my former students, passed me along the trail today as I documented the changes. They are walking away toward the wetland in the shot below with the destroyed bench in the foreground.

The destruction continued as the trail turned for a short jog westward to what was once a large sheltered clearing surrounded on three sides by tall trees.

A water fountain and bench were still accessible at the edge of the clearing, but it is now completely choked with debris. I expect park crews may tackle clearing it next winter.

The destruction was coming to an end as I walked north from the former clearing.

By the intersection with the path leading west to the Shawnee Avenue entrance, all was back to normal.

In the trees at that intersection is an old Superior engine that once was connected to a two-stage Ingersol-Rand vacuum plant. That pulled vacuum on the natural gas coming from the casing-head of oil wells in the area, which was once supplied to the city. None of that was damaged by the storm.

I took the side branch leading to the Shawnee Avenue entrance. I passed the barrier the park department had erected there while the trail was officially closed.

And presto, I was on the new concrete part of the pathway at the parking lot for the Agricultural Center.

Back on May 6, the district superintendent and I were worried as the tornado tracked so close to the new Agricultural Center, so new that we haven’t even had an Open House for it yet. Thankfully, it was spared as was the extensive and historic Bartlesville High School/College High School campus to the north and west.

The tornado tore up the trees along some of the most beautiful and popular parts of the Pathfinder Parkway, but volunteers and city crews have done a marvelous job cleaning up most of the mess. The Parkway is so extensive that there are still miles of undisturbed trail one can enjoy.

As one of my fellow walkers remarked this morning, the clearings made by the storm will benefit the pawpaws for awhile. Tornado damage is part of life here on the Great Plains, and the ecosystems have evolved to deal with it. The parts of the Pathfinder crossing the destruction zone are certainly different now, but we now have another show to enjoy as nature adapts and renews itself.

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.

Marcus Aurelius