Rescue crews were waiting for daylight early Tuesday to aid in the search for survivors and victims of a massive tornado that chewed through a suburb of Oklahoma City on Monday, grinding up entire neighborhoods and obliterating an elementary school where students who had huddled in a hallway with their teachers were buried in rubble.
The swath of devastation in Moore, Okla., was up to a mile wide and 20 miles long. The state medical examiner’s office told the Associated Press early Tuesday that at least 40 more bodies were expected, in addition to the 51 people already confirmed dead. Twenty of those 51 are children.
“The phone calls just keep coming,” said Amy Elliot, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office.
Some children were pulled — wet and dirty but alive — from the shredded Plaza Towers Elementary School. But as darkness fell Monday, dozens of rescuers in hard hats continued to pick through the wreckage looking for children and staffers who might be trapped.
Families were told to convene at two churches to await reunification with their loved ones.
“Our prayers are with you, and we’re working as quickly as we can to work through the debris,” said Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin.
Helicopter footage showed a wide path of near-total destruction in a community that had endured a similarly powerful twister 14 years ago. In addition to Plaza Towers, another elementary school, Briarwood, was demolished. All students at that school were accounted for, according to local news reports.
On the Enhanced Fujita damage scale of tornadoes, the storm that struck Monday afternoon was probably a 4 or 5, at the highest ends of violence, with winds reaching 200 miles per hour, said Russell Schneider, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., about eight miles from the path of the storm.
“It’s a very wide swath of very intense damage, a large number of structures almost totally destroyed,” Schneider said. “That in and of itself is usually indicative of a violent tornado, EF4 or EF5.”
Plaza Towers Elementary School, where scores of students took shelter as the twister approached, was destroyed. Nearby, cars and trucks were heaped on top of one another and homes were reduced to foundations covered with splintered wood.
“I’m sick to my stomach,” said Jayme Shelton, a spokesman for the city of Moore, reached by telephone. “Send your prayers this way.”
Shelton said the city’s roughly 160 police officers and firefighters were going door-to-door, checking for people who might be trapped in the rubble. Search-and-rescue teams poured in from every corner of the state.
“This is terrible. This is war-zone terrible,” said a helicopter reporter for KFOR-TV (Channel 4) in Oklahoma City. “This school is completely gone. .
The swath of devastation in Moore, Okla., was up to a mile wide and 20 miles long. The state medical examiner’s office told the Associated Press early Tuesday that at least 40 more bodies were expected, in addition to the 51 people already confirmed dead. Twenty of those 51 are children.
“The phone calls just keep coming,” said Amy Elliot, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office.
Some children were pulled — wet and dirty but alive — from the shredded Plaza Towers Elementary School. But as darkness fell Monday, dozens of rescuers in hard hats continued to pick through the wreckage looking for children and staffers who might be trapped.
Families were told to convene at two churches to await reunification with their loved ones.
“Our prayers are with you, and we’re working as quickly as we can to work through the debris,” said Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin.
Helicopter footage showed a wide path of near-total destruction in a community that had endured a similarly powerful twister 14 years ago. In addition to Plaza Towers, another elementary school, Briarwood, was demolished. All students at that school were accounted for, according to local news reports.
On the Enhanced Fujita damage scale of tornadoes, the storm that struck Monday afternoon was probably a 4 or 5, at the highest ends of violence, with winds reaching 200 miles per hour, said Russell Schneider, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., about eight miles from the path of the storm.
“It’s a very wide swath of very intense damage, a large number of structures almost totally destroyed,” Schneider said. “That in and of itself is usually indicative of a violent tornado, EF4 or EF5.”
Plaza Towers Elementary School, where scores of students took shelter as the twister approached, was destroyed. Nearby, cars and trucks were heaped on top of one another and homes were reduced to foundations covered with splintered wood.
“I’m sick to my stomach,” said Jayme Shelton, a spokesman for the city of Moore, reached by telephone. “Send your prayers this way.”
Shelton said the city’s roughly 160 police officers and firefighters were going door-to-door, checking for people who might be trapped in the rubble. Search-and-rescue teams poured in from every corner of the state.
“This is terrible. This is war-zone terrible,” said a helicopter reporter for KFOR-TV (Channel 4) in Oklahoma City. “This school is completely gone. .