What began as another severe weather night in Oklahoma ended in a loss almost too painful to put into words. In a report for KFOR Oklahoma’s News 4, Abigail Franklin told the story of a family in Major County now grieving the deaths of 47-year-old Jodie Owens and her 13-year-old daughter, Lexi Owens, after a tornado struck as they were trying to get home.
Franklin’s report did not focus only on broken power lines and storm damage, though there was plenty of both. It centered instead on the people left behind, the loved ones trying to understand how a mother and daughter could be alive one moment and gone the next.
That is what makes stories like this hit so hard. Tornado coverage often shows twisted metal, debris, and shattered buildings, but the deepest damage is always personal. It settles into a family’s voice, into a brother’s disbelief, into the silence left after a phone call cuts off forever.
According to News 4, the tornado that tore through Major County tracked for several miles, damaging structures and power lines. But for the Owens family, the storm’s path will always be measured differently. It is the distance between one warning call and a life changed forever.
Jodie Was Trying To Protect Her Children
One of the most heartbreaking details in Abigail Franklin’s report was what Jodie Owens was doing in the moments before she died.
Justin Zonts, Jodie’s brother, told KFOR that she could see the storm coming and called the children who were still at home to warn them to get into the cellar. In other words, even as danger closed in around her, she was still acting like a mother first.
“She could see a storm was coming,” Zonts said in Franklin’s report. “She called her children who were still at home to say, ‘hey, you need to get into a cellar.’ That’s actually when she got hit.”
That detail says so much about who she was without needing any extra embellishment. Some people meet disaster in panic. According to her family, Jodie met it by trying to protect her kids.
There is something especially devastating about that kind of loss. It is awful enough when a storm kills. It feels even crueler when it takes someone in the middle of doing exactly what a parent is supposed to do.
Franklin reported that Jodie was a mother of eight. That fact alone gives the tragedy an even heavier weight. This was not just a woman lost in a storm. This was the center of a large family, someone whose absence will now echo across many lives at once.
The Phone Call That Ended In Terror
KFOR’s report also revealed a detail that is almost unbearable to imagine.
Zonts told Abigail Franklin that one of Jodie’s daughters was on the other end of the phone and heard the moment the tornado struck. He said she heard her mother and sisters’ last cry before the line went dead.
“She was on the phone with her daughter, who heard her mom and sisters’ last cry,” Zonts said. “Before the line went dead.”
That kind of moment stays with a family forever. Storm stories can sometimes blur together in the news, especially during active weather stretches, but details like that cut through all of it. They remind you that behind every fatality count is an exact human moment, one that somebody heard, somebody witnessed, and somebody will never stop replaying.
There is almost nothing to add to a fact like that except sorrow. It is the sort of detail that turns a report into something much more haunting, because it places the reader or viewer right at the edge of the family’s grief.
And it also speaks to how quickly tornadoes can turn a normal, everyday act into a final moment. A phone call between a mother and her children should be ordinary. Here, it became the last connection they had.
Lexi Was Only 13
The loss of Lexi Owens makes the story even harder.
Franklin reported that Lexi was just 13 years old. In the News 4 segment, the station said she loved to play the drums in the school band. Her uncle described her as a sweet little spirit, happy, full of life, energy, and personality.
That is exactly the kind of description families give when they are trying to hold onto someone through words because they can no longer hold onto them in person. It is not polished language. It is memory trying to stay alive.
Zonts told KFOR, “Lexi is just a sweet little spirit, just happy, full of life, so full of energy and personality.”
There is something particularly painful about the death of a child in a storm because it feels so senselessly random. Lexi was 13. She should have had years ahead of her, school events, band performances, milestones, and ordinary family chaos. Instead, her life is now being described through grieving relatives and a funeral fundraiser.
That is what violent weather does at its cruelest. It does not just destroy structures. It interrupts futures.
The Search Ended In A Field
Franklin’s report also explained what happened after Jodie and Lexi disappeared in the storm.
According to KFOR, Jodie’s husband called law enforcement to organize a search party for his wife and daughter. The Major County Sheriff’s Office later found them in a field off Highway 60 near NS 234 Road.
That image is a brutal one. A husband and father searching for loved ones after a tornado is already heartbreaking. Learning they were found in a field makes the reality even more stark.
Zonts spoke to that pain directly in the report. “No father, no sister, no brother should have to go through this,” he said. “And her children should not have to go through this.”
That line feels important because it captures the ripple effect of a death like this. Jodie and Lexi were the two lives lost, but the tragedy does not stop there. It reaches into every person who loved them and forces them to live with something they never should have had to endure.
In storm coverage, it is easy to focus on the moment of impact. But the aftermath is where families really begin carrying the burden. The search. The confirmation. The calls. The burial plans. The stunned disbelief. That is where the full weight settles in.
A Mother Who Showed Up For Her Kids
If there is one thing Abigail Franklin’s report made clear, it is that Jodie Owens was deeply present in her children’s lives.
Her brother told KFOR that she was in the PTA, went to every event, and helped with fundraisers for her son in the Fairview high school band. He described her as someone always trying to be there for her kids and lift them up in whatever way she could.
“She’s there for her kids,” Zonts said. “She’s in the PTA. She goes to every event. She’s worked with fundraisers for her son, who’s in the high school band at Fairview. She’s just doing everything to be there for her kids in any way so that they can be lifted up, no matter what.”
That kind of description paints a very clear picture. Jodie was not distant. She was involved. She was present. She was the kind of mother families depend on and communities quietly lean on too.
Those are often the losses that leave the biggest holes. When someone is woven into school life, family life, and the everyday support system around children, their death does not just wound a household. It shakes a whole local network.
Franklin’s reporting let that truth come through without overdoing it. The facts themselves carried enough weight.
A Community Left With Grief
By the end of the News 4 report, the scale of the family’s grief was impossible to miss.
Zonts told Franklin, “They’re amazing people, and anyone who knows them will be devastated by this news.” He also admitted he still could not fully process it, saying it felt like watching a movie and not believing it was real.
That sense of unreality is common in sudden tragedy, and it feels especially true in tornado deaths. Storms arrive fast, leave fast, and then force families to understand the unbearable in a matter of hours.
KFOR said a GoFundMe has been set up to help the family with funeral expenses. That detail, small as it may seem, says something too. After the cameras leave and the weather maps move on, families are still left trying to pay for burials, comfort children, and rebuild some kind of life around an absence that should not be there.
Abigail Franklin’s report did more than tell viewers that a tornado killed two people in Major County. It showed who they were. A mother of eight who was warning her children to get to safety. A 13-year-old girl who loved drums and carried a bright spirit. A family now trying to make sense of the kind of loss that does not make sense at all.
That is the hardest part of storm season. The radar eventually clears. The damage gets repaired. Power lines go back up.
But for families like the Owens family, nothing really goes back to normal.
Ed spent his childhood in the backwoods of Maine, where harsh winters taught him the value of survival skills. With a background in bushcraft and off-grid living, Ed has honed his expertise in fire-making, hunting, and wild foraging. He writes from personal experience, sharing practical tips and hands-on techniques to thrive in any outdoor environment. Whether it’s primitive camping or full-scale survival, Ed’s advice is grounded in real-life challenges.
