Oklahoma Tornado: Children Among at Least 51 Dead, 'Horrific' Damage

Send a prayer out to the families

  US News

  |

  Weird News

  |

  More ABC News Videos

First responders began the grim task of digging people -- including children at two elementary schools -- out of piles of rubble this evening after a devastating monster tornado roared through the Oklahoma city metropolitan area, leaving at least 51 people dead.

Among the dead were children from one of the devastated elementary schools in Moore, Okla., local officials said.

Desperate parents stood around what was left of the devastated Plaza Towers Elementary School, many of them sobbing, as rescuers worked to to help pull out school children and faculty.

"I know there's a number of dead children from that school," Oklahoma City Police spokesman Sgt. Gary Knight said. "I know the number is around seven."

Authorities said Briarwood Elementary School in Moore, Okla., received a "direct hit" from the storm and was also destroyed, with its roof and walls blown off.

Children were still in school because in anticipation of the severe weather this afternoon, schools in the Moore area did not release their students at the end of the day, according to Oklahoma Emergency Management officials.

Entire neighborhoods have been wiped out, cars were tossed around like toys and were found on top of buildings.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said at a news conference tonight that downed powerlines and massive traffic jams have made emergency responses difficult, and cautioned those not involved in search and rescue operations to stay away from disaster areas.

"Our prayers and thoughts are with an Oklahoma families hit hard," Fallin said at a news conference today. "Our hearts are just broken for the parents wondering about the state of their children."

Television on Monday showed destruction spread over a vast area, with blocks upon blocks of homes and businesses destroyed. Residents, some partly clothed and apparently caught by surprise, were shown picking through rubble. Several structures were on fire, and cars had been tossed around, flipped over and stacked on top of each other.

Kelcy Trowbridge, her husband and their three young children piled into their neighbor’s cellar just outside of Moore and huddled together for about five minutes, wrapped under a blanket as the tornado screamed above them, debris smashing against the cellar door.

They emerged to find their home flattened and the family car resting upside down a few houses away. Ms. Trowbridge’s husband rushed toward what was left of their home and began sifting through the debris, then stopped, and told her to call the police.

He had found the body of a little girl, about 2 or 3 years old, Ms. Trowbridge said.

“He knew she was already gone,” Ms. Trowbridge said. “When the police got there, he just bawled.”

The storm system continued to churn through the region on Monday afternoon, and forecasters warned that new tornadoes could form.

An earlier storm system also spawned several tornadoes across Oklahoma on Sunday. Several deaths were reported.

Russell Schneider, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said the risk of tornadoes throughout the region remained high going into Tuesday.

Some parts of Moore emerged seeming untouched by the tornado. Bea Carruth, who lives about 20 blocks from where the storm struck, said her home and others in her neighborhood appeared to be fine.

Ms. Carruth had ridden out the tornado as she usually does, at her son’s house nearby, the hail pounding away on the cellar where they had taken shelter. Tornadoes have long been a part of life in Moore, she said, and a few times a year, in a well-worn ritual, she goes into her son’s cellar when the sirens go off.

In 1999, the last time a storm this size struck, Ms. Carruth again was lucky and the home she lived in then was spared. She ended up buying an empty plot of land where a house destroyed by that tornado once stood. Her house now sits on that plot.

“This is just awful,” she said. “It all just breaks my heart.”