[Petronski]

I was curious about what is built at the GM plant. FYI:

With the Oklahoma City investment, GM will build a new 250,000 sq. foot paint shop and renovate the plant's body shop and general assembly areas with new equipment, machinery and tooling.

Regular truck production is currently scheduled to begin at Oklahoma City during the 2002 calendar year.

"GM's Oklahoma City investment is part of an ongoing strategy to further expand truck production capacity and better align our manufacturing capabilities with customer demand," said Guy Briggs, GM vice president and general manager of the GM Truck Group. "Oklahoma City has been a great place to build cars and we know it will be a great place to build trucks."

For competitive reasons, GM is not releasing information on the specific truck products to be built at Oklahoma City.

The Oklahoma City plant currently employees approximately 3,150 hourly and 230 salaried employees.

[nicmarlo]

employees approximately 3,150 hourly and 230 salaried employees.

I pray that none are seriously hurt; prayers, also, to all the other residents in the path of this tornado......how very frightening this must be!

[Tuxedo]

I hope the employees got to safety at the GM plant. Those things run 24/7, so there had to be people there. Picture from the weather channel look like it was wiped out. Almost looked as if it was partially under construction!

[nicmarlo]

Tornado Hits Oklahoma Town, Buildings Toppled
Thu May 8, 2003 07:05 PM ET

Live video footage from local broadcaster KFOR showed a restaurant destroyed by the tornado, which also ripped through large sections of a General Motors facility in the area. Fire trucks and rescue vehicles could be seen racing through city streets, and there were several buildings, homes and apartment complexes that were damaged in the tornado, the video footage showed.

The tornado was heading to the east, authorities said.

The broadcaster said at least one person was injured but authorities could not confirm the report. [snip]

[cashion]

For competitive reasons, GM is not releasing information on the specific truck products to be built at Oklahoma City.

Before the major switchover, they were building the Chevrolet Malibu and its cousins.. They currently build the GMC Envoy, I'm not sure if the Chevy Trailblazer is included, though.