MOORE, Oklahoma -- Rescue workers with sniffer dogs and searchlights combed through the wreckage left by a massive tornado to ensure no survivors remained buried in the rubble of schools, homes and buildings in an Oklahoma City suburb.
The massive tornado on Monday afternoon flattened blocks of the town, killed at least 24 people and injured about 240 in Moore, just outside Oklahoma City.
But as dawn approached on Monday, officials were increasingly confident that everyone caught in the disaster had been accounted for, despite initial fears that the twister had claimed the lives of more than 90 people.
Jerry Lojka, spokesman for Oklahoma Emergency Management, said search-and-rescue dog teams would search on Wednesday for anybody trapped under the rubble, but that attention would also be focused on a huge cleanup job.
"They will continue the searches of areas to be sure nothing is overlooked," he said, adding: "There's going to be more of a transition to recovery."
More than 1,000 people had already registered for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which sent hundreds of workers to Oklahoma to help with the recovery, a White House official said on Wednesday.
After a long day of searching through shattered homes that was slowed by rainy weather, Oklahoma County commissioner Brian Maughan said it seemed no one was missing.
"As far as I know, of the list of people that we have had that they are all accounted for in one way or another," he said.
As he spoke on Tuesday evening, dog teams and members of the National Guard were changing shifts to work through the night.
The death toll of 24 was lower than initially feared, but nine children were among the dead, including seven who died at Plaza Towers Elementary School which took a direct hit by the deadliest tornado to strike the United States in two years.
Emergency workers pulled more than 100 survivors from the debris of homes, schools and a hospital after the tornado ripped through the Oklahoma City region with winds exceeding 200 miles per hour, leaving a trail of destruction 17 miles long and 1.3 miles wide.
Plaza Towers Elementary was one of five schools in its path. "They (rescuers) literally were lifting walls up and kids were coming out," Oklahoma State Police Sergeant Jeremy Lewis said. "They pulled kids out from under cinder blocks without a scratch on them."
The National Weather Service upgraded its calculation of the storm's strength on Tuesday, saying it was a rare EF5, the most powerful ranking on the Enhanced Fujita Scale
'I LOOKED UP AND SAW THE TORNADO'
The last time a giant twister tore through the area, on May 3, 1999, it killed more than 40 people and destroyed thousands of homes. That tornado also ranked as an EF5.
While Oklahoma Emergency Management's Lojka said a flyover of the affected area on Tuesday showed 2,400 homes damaged or obliterated, with an estimated 10,000 people affected, the death toll was lower than might have been expected.
The toll was also a fraction of that of the 2011 twister in Joplin, Missouri, which killed 161 people.
In the hours following the storm, many more people were feared dead. At one point, the Oklahoma state medical examiner's office said the toll could rise as high as 91, but on Tuesday officials said 24 bodies had been recovered, down from a previous tally of 51.
"There was a lot of chaos," said Amy Elliott, chief administrative officer for the medical examiner.
Some ascribe the relatively low number of dead residents discovered in Moore, home to 55,000 people, to the fact many locals have small "storm safe" shelters, basically a concrete hole in the garage floor with a sliding roof that locks.
The massive tornado on Monday afternoon flattened blocks of the town, killed at least 24 people and injured about 240 in Moore, just outside Oklahoma City.
But as dawn approached on Monday, officials were increasingly confident that everyone caught in the disaster had been accounted for, despite initial fears that the twister had claimed the lives of more than 90 people.
Jerry Lojka, spokesman for Oklahoma Emergency Management, said search-and-rescue dog teams would search on Wednesday for anybody trapped under the rubble, but that attention would also be focused on a huge cleanup job.
"They will continue the searches of areas to be sure nothing is overlooked," he said, adding: "There's going to be more of a transition to recovery."
More than 1,000 people had already registered for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which sent hundreds of workers to Oklahoma to help with the recovery, a White House official said on Wednesday.
After a long day of searching through shattered homes that was slowed by rainy weather, Oklahoma County commissioner Brian Maughan said it seemed no one was missing.
"As far as I know, of the list of people that we have had that they are all accounted for in one way or another," he said.
As he spoke on Tuesday evening, dog teams and members of the National Guard were changing shifts to work through the night.
The death toll of 24 was lower than initially feared, but nine children were among the dead, including seven who died at Plaza Towers Elementary School which took a direct hit by the deadliest tornado to strike the United States in two years.
Emergency workers pulled more than 100 survivors from the debris of homes, schools and a hospital after the tornado ripped through the Oklahoma City region with winds exceeding 200 miles per hour, leaving a trail of destruction 17 miles long and 1.3 miles wide.
Plaza Towers Elementary was one of five schools in its path. "They (rescuers) literally were lifting walls up and kids were coming out," Oklahoma State Police Sergeant Jeremy Lewis said. "They pulled kids out from under cinder blocks without a scratch on them."
The National Weather Service upgraded its calculation of the storm's strength on Tuesday, saying it was a rare EF5, the most powerful ranking on the Enhanced Fujita Scale
'I LOOKED UP AND SAW THE TORNADO'
The last time a giant twister tore through the area, on May 3, 1999, it killed more than 40 people and destroyed thousands of homes. That tornado also ranked as an EF5.
While Oklahoma Emergency Management's Lojka said a flyover of the affected area on Tuesday showed 2,400 homes damaged or obliterated, with an estimated 10,000 people affected, the death toll was lower than might have been expected.
The toll was also a fraction of that of the 2011 twister in Joplin, Missouri, which killed 161 people.
In the hours following the storm, many more people were feared dead. At one point, the Oklahoma state medical examiner's office said the toll could rise as high as 91, but on Tuesday officials said 24 bodies had been recovered, down from a previous tally of 51.
"There was a lot of chaos," said Amy Elliott, chief administrative officer for the medical examiner.
Some ascribe the relatively low number of dead residents discovered in Moore, home to 55,000 people, to the fact many locals have small "storm safe" shelters, basically a concrete hole in the garage floor with a sliding roof that locks.