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Post-Tornado Rescue Efforts in Oklahoma Near an End Drama as Alarm Sirens Wailed; Time Reveals Lower Death Toll From Tornado
(about 3 hours later)
MOORE, Okla. — Oklahoma officials said Tuesday afternoon that they hoped to finish their search for survivors of a massive tornado by nightfall, a little more than 24 hours after the Oklahoma City area was slammed by a storm packing 190-mile per hour winds and measuring nearly two miles across that killed dozens of people, injured hundreds of others and leveled buildings to their foundations. MOORE, Okla. — At the end of the day on Monday, on the last week of the school year, students at Plaza Towers Elementary in this blue-collar suburb were zipping their backpacks. A fifth-grade class had just finished watching “Hatchet,” about a boy who survives a crash-landing in the Canadian wilderness.
The brunt of the damage occurred in the suburb of Moore, where rescue workers struggled all day to make their way through streets cut off by debris and around downed power lines to those who were feared trapped under hills of rubble. The crews, using thermal-imaging equipment and dogs, sifted through scattered piles of red brick, steel beams, utility poles and upended cars where houses and shops once stood. Then the sirens started to wail.
Gary Bird, the city’s fire chief, said that more than 200 people worked overnight Monday and into Tuesday looking for survivors. “We will go through every damaged piece of property in this city,” he said Tuesday afternoon. He said he thought the search would be completed by sundown. Claire Gossett’s teacher hurried her fifth-grade class into the hallway, then into a bathroom as a tornado that was more than a mile wide drew closer. Claire, 11, crammed into a stall with six other girls. They held onto each other. The sirens wailed two, three, four times.
Officials said that it was still too early to say precisely how many people had been killed, but the toll appears to be significantly less than what had been originally feared. On Monday night, Amy Elliott, the spokeswoman for the Oklahoma City medical examiner, said at least 51 people had died and 40 more bodies were on their way, but on Tuesday, Ms. Elliott said that count “is no longer accurate.” Echo Mackey, crouched in a hallway, hugging her son, Logan, a first grader, said, “I heard someone say, ‘It’s about to hit us,’ and then the power went out.”
As of Tuesday morning, the medical examiner had confirmed 24 dead, nine of them children, she said. Of the dead, 20 were in Moore, and four in Oklahoma City, officials said. The mountain of rubble that was once Plaza Towers Elementary School has become the emotional and physical focal point of one of the most destructive tornadoes to strike Oklahoma. Although the casualty toll fluctuated wildly early on, officials said on Tuesday that at least 24 people had died, including nine children, seven of them at Plaza Towers.
“This was the storm of storms,” said Mick Cornett, Oklahoma City’s mayor. Throughout the 500-student school, teachers and parents had shielded students and crammed into closets and anywhere else they could squeeze as the tornado bore down of them.
Gov. Mary Fallin said at a news conference Tuesday that officials had not yet arrived at a conclusive death toll, but that 237 people had been injured. Officials have said that number includes about 70 children. It swirled out of a fast-developing storm that began cutting a devastating path through Moore and other sections of the southern Oklahoma City suburbs about 2:45 p.m., plowing through 17 miles of ground over 50 minutes, damaging or destroying hundreds of homes, businesses, schools and hospitals in Moore and Oklahoma City, just to the north. Winds reached speeds of up to 210 miles per hour, and many structures were wiped clean to their foundations.
The risk of tornadoes throughout the region remained at an elevated level through Tuesday afternoon, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, and throughout the day, rescue efforts were hampered by wind and rain. Severe weather has become an almost routine part of life in Oklahoma City and its suburbs, a section of Middle America where the lore of twisters and thunderstorms has long been embraced and at times even celebrated. The National Basketball Association team is called the Oklahoma City Thunder, and there is an annual National Weather Festival, where families gather for weather balloon launches and storm-chaser car shows. But the 1.3-mile-wide tornado that struck Plaza Towers on Monday stunned Oklahomans, in both its size and the number of victims, dozens of whom were students who were killed or injured.
A continuing focus of concern was Plaza Towers Elementary School, which was reduced to a pile of twisted metal and toppled walls. Rescue workers were able to pull several children from the rubble, and on Tuesday, as a chilly rain swept through the area, crews were still struggling to cut through fallen beams and clear debris. Officials said Tuesday afternoon that they were not sure whether all of the school’s students, teachers and staff had been accounted for. School windows were smashed and the ceiling ripped away, showering the students with glass, wood and pieces of insulation. “I couldn’t hear anything but people screaming and crying,” Claire said. “It felt like the school was just flying.”
At Briarwood Elementary School in Oklahoma City, on the border with Moore, cars were thrown through the facade and the roof was torn off. At a news conference on Tuesday in the lobby of Moore City Hall, which was running on generators because of a widespread power failure, Gov. Mary Fallin said she took an aerial tour of the tornado’s path and toured the damaged areas by ground. She said she was left speechless. “There’s just sticks and bricks, basically,” she said, adding, “It was very surreal coming upon the school because there was no school. There was just debris.”
Albert Ashwood, an emergency management official, said the two schools that were hit lacked safe rooms for storms, because the appropriate financing had not been applied for. Limited funds meant that other priorities were set, he said. The presence of safe rooms, however, he said, however, did “not necessarily” mean that more students would have survived. But it is a “mitigating” factor, he said. “This was a very unique tornado,” he said. Officials said it was still too early to say precisely how many people had been killed, but the toll appeared to be significantly less than initially feared. State officials lowered the death toll to at least 24, down from their estimate late Monday night of nearly 100 fatalities. One reason for the uncertainty was because officials believed that some bodies might have been taken to local funeral homes instead of the state medical examiner’s office. But it appeared that 48 people who were believed to be missing on Monday night — and were feared dead — had been found. More than 200 were injured, including 70 children.
Despite being located in a region prone to tornadoes — and being devastated by one in 1999 — the city of Moore, according to its Web site, has no ordinance requiring storm safe rooms in public or private facilities, and the city itself lacked a community shelter. The confusion only added to the unease. As officials spoke at City Hall, heavy rain and booms of thunder could be heard, severe weather that had periodically delayed rescuers and those assessing the damage throughout the day.
“All of the schools in the Moore Public School District have plans — coordinated with the Emergency Management Office of the city for monitoring severe weather conditions and for placing students and staff into shelter during severe weather events,” according to the Web site, although the schools lacked underground shelters. President Obama, who declared a federal disaster in five Oklahoma counties, said Tuesday at the White House that the tornado had been “one of the most destructive in history,” and that he had informed aides that “Oklahoma needs to get everything it needs right away.” He said Federal Emergency Management Agency officials had been dispatched to Moore to aid in the recovery.
President Obama, who on Monday night declared a federal disaster in five Oklahoma counties, said during brief remarks at the White House on Tuesday morning that the tornado had been “one of the most destructive in history,” and that he had informed aides that “Oklahoma needs to get everything it needs right away.” He said Federal Emergency Management Agency officials had been dispatched to Moore, which has a population of about 55,000, to aid in the recovery effort.
“For all those who’ve been affected, we recognize that you face a long road ahead,” Mr. Obama said. “In some cases, there will be enormous grief that has to be absorbed. But you will not travel that path alone.”“For all those who’ve been affected, we recognize that you face a long road ahead,” Mr. Obama said. “In some cases, there will be enormous grief that has to be absorbed. But you will not travel that path alone.”
Governor Fallin called the tornado one of the most “horrific” disasters the state has ever faced, but pledged to rebuild. After taking an aerial tour of the area, she said the trail of ruin might be 20-miles long and as much as two miles wide. After surveying the wreckage in Moore, officials at the National Weather Service upgraded its assessment of the twister’s power to Category 5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which measures tornado strength on a scale of zero to 5, with 5 being the most destructive. It touched down at 2:45 p.m. about four and a half miles west of Newcastle, to the west of Moore, and ended at 3:35 p.m., almost five miles east of the city, weather officials said.
“It is hard to look at,” she said. “There’s just sticks and bricks.” Moore, with a population of 55,000, is a suburb 11 miles south of downtown Oklahoma City. It is the home of the country music star Toby Keith, as the giant letters declare on a white silo off Interstate 35. Parents and residents questioned whether Plaza Towers Elementary — a 47-year-old public school whose students range from pre-kindergartners to sixth graders — was the safest place for the children to seek shelter.
Shortly before midnight on Monday, the area near the Plaza Towers school was eerily quiet and shrouded in darkness from a widespread power outage. Local authorities and F.B.I. agents patrolled the streets, restricting access to the school. Albert Ashwood, director of the State Department of Emergency Management, said the two schools that were hard hit — Plaza Towers in Moore and Briarwood Elementary in Oklahoma City — did not have safe rooms because the appropriate state financing had not been sought. The presence of safe rooms, he said, did “not necessarily” mean that more students would have survived, but it is a “mitigating” factor. “This was a very unique tornado,” he said.
Half a mile away, the only sounds on Southwest Fourth Street were of barking dogs and tires on wet pavement littered with debris. Hovering in the sky, a helicopter shined a spotlight on the damaged neighborhoods. In the darkness, the century-old Moore Cemetery was a ghostly wreck: women’s clothing and blankets clung to the branches of tilting trees and twisted sheets of metal ripped from nearby buildings or homes were strewn among the graves. Many headstones had been pushed flat to the ground by the wind. Despite being located in a region prone to tornadoes — and being devastated by one in 1999 — the City of Moore, according to its Web site, has no ordinance requiring storm safe rooms in public or private buildings, and the city itself lacks a community shelter. Plaza Towers had no underground shelter. A state lawmaker whose district includes Moore, Representative Mark McBride, said the deaths should force an examination of whether schools in Oklahoma should be required to have storm shelters.
The tornado touched down at 2:56 p.m., 16 minutes after the first warning went out, and traveled for 17 miles, according to the National Weather Service in Norman, Okla. It was on the ground for about 40 minutes, first striking the town of Newcastle before thrashing its way to Moore, about 10 miles away. Susan Pierce, the superintendent of the Moore school district, told reporters at a news conference that safety was the district’s top priority. School administrators and staff put a crisis plan into action on Monday and monitored the weather throughout the day, she said. “With very little notice we implemented our tornado shelter procedures at every school site,” she said.
Its top wind speeds reached 190 miles per hour. Ms. Pierce said the state requires schools to perform tornado drills, and the district has exceeded that requirement. “We’re in the process of learning as much as we can about what has happened, and we are reviewing our emergency procedures today,” she said.
Severe weather is common in the region this time of year, and Moore has seen other tornadoes, including in May 1999, when a tornado with record wind speeds of 302 m.p.h. destroyed much of the town, which was then rebuilt. Ms. Mackey said she had gone to Plaza Towers as the sky turned dark, saying she had wanted to be with her son when the storm hit. But after it did, she said, she concluded that the school was not equipped to shelter dozens of children from the raw power of an Oklahoma twister.
On Monday, 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. “There’s no question in my mind that that school was not safe enough,” she said.
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. Late Monday afternoon, as the skies darkened, numerous parents rushed to the school. Some, like Ms. Mackey, arrived as the tornado approached and decided to seek shelter inside with their children. Others had arrived earlier and had enough time to flee, which may have prevented more casualties.
He had found the body of a little girl, about 2 or 3 years old, she said. Jennifer Doan, a Plaza Towers teacher who is eight weeks pregnant, waited anxiously in a hallway with 11 of her third-grade students who had not yet been picked up by their parents. An announcement blared over the intercom that the tornado was upon them, and Ms. Doan, 30, quickly wrapped several of her students in her arms. The walls suddenly caved in, she told her boyfriend, Nyle Rogers.
“He knew she was already gone,” Ms. Trowbridge said. “When the police got there, he just bawled.” Ms. Doan was conscious, buried under piles of rubble, but she was not sure her students were safe. She thought she could make out their body movements beneath the debris. In the distance she could hear their voices: “I can’t hold the rock anymore,” one said. Eventually the voices stopped.
She said: “My neighborhood is gone. It’s flattened. Demolished. The street is gone. The next block over, it’s in pieces.” Mr. Rogers had gone speeding toward the school when he had gotten word of the tornado. “As I got closer, I saw debris and backpacks,” he said. “And when I turned the corner, I just saw a wasteland. I didn’t know how anyone could have survived.”

John Eligon and Manny Fernandez reported from Moore, and Michael Schwirtz from New York. Reporting was contributed by Nick Oxford from Moore, Leslie Metzger and Kathleen Johnson from Norman, Okla., Dan Frosch from Denver, Timothy Williams and Christine Hauser from New York, John Schwartz from Dallas and Peter Baker from Washington.

But Ms. Doan did. She was lifted out of the rubble, put in the back of a pickup truck and shuttled to a nearby church and then to the hospital, where she was in stable condition on Tuesday with a fractured sternum and spine. A piece of rebar speared her left hand. Their unborn baby, Mr. Rogers said, appeared to be fine.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Rogers said he was informed by the principal that seven of the students in the hallway had died. He had not yet told Ms. Doan.
“She’s just worried about her kids,” he said. “That’s all she’s thinking about right now.”
But the principal told him something else. Two of the students she had wrapped in herarms had survived.

Reporting was contributed by John Eligon in Moore, Dan Frosch in Denver, Michael Schwirtz in New York and Ben Fenwick in Norman, Okla.