. >> reporter: robert's son was at briarwood elementary. >> when we got up to briarwood, you could see completely destroyed. i'm just happy that i was able to find my son. my family's okay. >> reporter: briarwood parents were reunited with their children at an assigned pickup place. first grader camden was waiting right there when his mom showed up. she was overcome with relief to find out that her son was safe and sound. and so grateful for the school worker who protected him. >> this is gabriel ryan wheeler. he's my son. we just got reunited. he's okay but he was directly in the tornado. his teacher was right next to him. >> reporter: andrew wheeler credits a briarwood teacher with keeping his son safe. >> the teacher held their heads and bricks were falling on the kids. she got her arm injured. one of the other boys on her other side got a big gash on his head but he's okay. he was the last one to be reunited. so we got him. gabriel wheater is safe. >> reporter: abc news contributing correspondent mike boettcher, who lives in oklahoma, was at the scene nearby briarwood elementary. >

and that moment was at the briarwood elementary school. at briarwood, everyone survived.ers put their lives on the line to save every single child. >> theesz are the frantic moments after the tornado struck briarwood elementary school in moore, oklahoma. words can't fully do justice. >> i can't echbl describe what was going through my head. i was numb. >> this is what you saw? yeah, right before we went in. >> she snapped this picture. tammy raced inside and crammed about 20 students into a closet and bathroom. >> before i shut the door, because those bathrooms have doors, i shut the doors and i said i love you. the boys looked at me a little bit strange. i walked into the girls and i said i love you. i just told them to pray. that's what we did the whole time in the closet was pray. >> do you think they grasped what was about to happen? i'm not guilty really sure. we're about to have a program in two days. so they were practicing. i glanced up once and you could just see it. it was like brown. huge. never-ending. just all the way up to the heavens. and then i got back do

shelly mcmillan is the principal at briarwood.w. >> hey, nice to meet you. >> nice to meet you. thank god. i mean, what you and your teachers did is extraordinary. i talked to some of them last night. how much warning did you have the storm -- that the storm was coming? >> well, we knew a lot -- we knew about it, just because we were watching the weather channels, monitoring that. and sirens went off. and we had been planning all day for the storm to come. and so -- >> when it actually -- >> an hour? >> when it actually hit, what thank you do? >> well, we were watching it come. and i was just praying that it would go a different direction. but it didn't -- or lift. but okay, it's coming. this is it. and so we had a few parents and teachers watching and tracking it, and everybody getting in their safe spot and off -- everybody went to their safe areas. they were already there, though. once the sirens went off, i had everybody in from the gym, from the portables, everybody was already in their spots. >> i talked to a teacher from br

all of the students at briarwood have been accounted for. however, at least seven children at plaza towers elementary were killed. both schools were basically reduced to rubble, and according to oklahoma officials neither school had safe rooms for students and teachers to take shelters. nor did the schools have basements. but the teachers did everything they could to save those kids. a second grade teacher at briarwood elementary was with several children when the ceiling collapsed, pinning them to the ground. metal beams and cinder blocks crushed her. she survived and said her thoughts were on the children and keeping them calm. at a nearby day care center the staff hustled 15 children to two bathrooms, draping them with a protective covering and singing songs with them to keep them calm as the wind ripped the roof off of one of the bathrooms and debris rained down on the children, they remained calm singing "you are my sunshine." and maybe the most remarkable story comes from plaza towers elementary where teacher rhonda crosswhite put hers

briarwood, it's gone.room only thing standing but do any of the schools have shelters or not? >> reporter: you know, it's interesting. tammy has an older son in high school. not too far away from there. it's a school built in the last ten to 15 years and that school has a shelter, a safe place where all of the students can be rushed in to and huddled in to one safe place enolder schools don't have them necessarily. we spoke with a lot of people today saying -- say we need to have the conversation about whether or not these shelters need to be put in and whether the money should be spent to put in the shelters at all of the schools around oklahoma given how much this state has to battle tornadoes. it's not something to go away and heard it from several people today, erin. >> we were talking to a student at the briarwood school and he was saying he wasn't sure he wanted to go back to the school, but you have talked to teachers, to people who are there. do they see this as a miracle? you know, today when we f

the donations are pouring in. >> thank you. >> reporter: the senior just dropped off $5. >> briarwoodementary school, you still have that bond. >> reporter: this teacher's third grade daughter cleared out her piggy bank. >> i asked her if she really wanted to give all her money and she did. she was really happy to give everything away. >> reporter: brooke did some quick thinking tuesday night when there was a soccer game and softball game. she hit up all the spectators in the stands and collected a quick $400. brooke's friends have also jumped in to help. >> it looks like an awful thing to live through. you know, it's going to take a lot to repair it. if we can even help just the tiniest bit, that would be great. >> reporter: brooke's mom has spread the word on facebook and she made initial contact with the summit's office in moore, oklahoma. >> the plan is to donate every single penny directly to briarwood elementary and not just to the relief effort. i know brooke's hope is to build a new playground for that elementary school or stock their library with books. so it would be briar w

all of the students at briarwood have been accounted for.ever, at least seven children at plaza towers elementary were killed. both schools were reduced to rubble and according to oklahoma officials neither school had safe rooms for students and teachers to take shelter. nor did the schools have basements. a second grade teacher at briarwood elementary was with seven children when the ceiling collapsed pinning them to the ground. she survived and said her thoughts were on children and keeping them calm. at a nearby day care center, a staff hustled 15 children to two bathrooms draping them with a protective covering and singing songs to keep them calm as the wind ripped the roof off and they remained calm singing "you are my sunshine." maybe the most remarkable story comes from plaza towers elementary where a teacher put herself directly between the kids and the storm. >> i was in a stall with some kids. it started coming down. i laid on top of them. one of my little boys kept saying i love you. please don't die with me. i never thought i was

all the reports were saying that briarwood was going.'s all -- it didn't matter. >> i felt them and it was raining on me and all that. >> can you tell me, in that closet, what was your teacher telling you as she put her hands over your head and held you close? >> she said it was just okay. >> for one family, such great news tonight. >>> and coming up next here, other families sending a message to the world from the storm zone, how one woman comforted a lot of small children as the tornado was bearing down. male a. it's the most powerful thing on the planet. love holds us in the beginning. comforts us as we grow old. love is the reason you care. for all the things in your life... that make life worth living. ♪ ♪ sweet love of mine if you're suffering from constipation, miralax or metamucil may take days to work. for faster relief, try dulcolax laxative tablets. dulcolax provides gentle relief overnight unlike miralax and metamucil that can take up to 3 days. for predictable relief try dulcolax. and metamucil that can take up to 3 days. it

>> we were assigned to search briarwood elementary.ur first response. >> and briarwood was completely leveled. you must have gotten there and thought the devastation could have been incredible, yet you were able to get everyone out alive. >> yeah, it was a tremendous amount of devastation in that area. >> i know you're there with salsa, who is looking so calm and in control as dogs can make everyone feel so wonderful. you've been working, though, canine teams on the ground, 12-hour shifts, just completely exhausting for human or dog. how were you able to find people? how does salsa work? >> salsa is a live-find dog. she goes by scenting, not like a tracking dog. i send her on a search and she gets in there and does everything on her own. the handler's main responsibility is to make sure they cover the devastation area thoroughly. we'll send them back into areas we don't think they covered completely. >> how does she know when she finds someone? how does she communicate that to you? >> it's called a focus bark alert. she's trained, when

jay gray is near briarwood elementary school. live shots of that area where we were just talking to jay, as you can see, power is out in this area, it doesn't look like it normally does in an aerial and those blinking lights that you see through the city are traffic and traffic and first responders and emergency vehicles on scene trying to do the best they can. we have heard reiterated that you don't need to be out on the streets if you can avoid it. if you are in the area, and you are driving from moore, oklahoma and these other places that have been hit so far, they do not need you to be out on the streets offering help. they will be working through the night with rescue efforts, particularly at that plaza towers elementary school, they believe there may be people unaccounted for there, including kids. but they don't need people out and about and they're having a really hard time getting around in oklahoma city. at this late hour right now, it's 9:41 on the east coast. it's 8:41 local time in oklahoma ci city, to hear jay say,

the other, briarwood elementary school. busy all night, searching the rubble at these schools for more victims. so far, 40 children confirmed dead and that number likely to go up. pam brown has details for us. >> illuminated by flood lights rescue teams searched throughout the night, sifting through mountains of debris where power towers elementary school once stood. in some places, the debris was ten feet high. underneath, every parent's worst nightmare, the bodies of school children who tried to seek shelter from a ferocious tornado. many more still missing. the race to rescue dozens of students and teachers began right after the massive two-mile-wide tornado rip throughout two elementary schools directly in its path at hardest-hit plaza towers elementary, a third grade class huddled in a hallway of their school. >> i had to hold onto the wall to keep myself safe because i didn't want to fly away in the tornado. >> we had to pull a car out of the front hallway off a teacher and she, i don't know what that lady's name is,

take a look at this picture, outside of briarwood elementary school. a teacher carrying out one of the students. if you take a closer look, kind of a picture, image that captures your eye right away. take a look at this person back here. that is what we are assuming another teacher or parent, holding the hand of a little girl who is barefoot. this woman has a bloodied face. these pictures are going to tell you all the stories that you are going to need to hear about what happened in moore yesterday. just devastation. >> yeah. take a look at one from "tulsa world" and it says moore again. again referring to people in oklahoma back in 1999 had to deal with maybe the highest wind ever recorded on the surface of the planet. this one is worse. not in terms of wind speed. in terms of devastation, probably. moore again. this is by that plaza towers elementary school. a mom carrying a child across a field. take a look at the tree in the background. look at metal debris, all the vegetation gone. it is really just incredible. that look on the mother's face, you

you see that school, briarwood wasn't that -- are you seeing footage from briarwood school.al damage there. you know what happened with plaza towers. if your kid is in there. and the ability -- we kept showing this image it will rotate through. the mother bloodies, father is bloodiesed. but smiles on their face, they have their kids. this is the picture we're talking about. >> look at that woman right there and that hug right there. one of the things that has to be most difficult is the unknown and still so much unknown. how many people still may be buried, may be trapped since the storm hit, we understand that 101 people have been pulled from this rubble. including overnight. so no one wants to give up hope as either continued. they had us move locations earlier, because the tv generators were making so much noise, he they want to hear people who may be trapped in the rubble. very important to them. this gives you a sense of how they are still holding out some hope. >> that's 1 0 people done in an official capacity that could be communicated, where they could get out a call

amazingly, everyone at briarwood, they got out alive.oined by the superintendent marianne moore. when you look at briarwood, when you look at towers, it's a testament to the preparation and also the teachers and the principals. >> it is absolutely to the credit of our school staff and our teachers. they do such wonderful work every day. and this is just an example how they actually performed the protocol and procedures that we have in place. they put themselves between the children and harm's way and did the best they could to account for the safety of their students. this is a practice that -- a protocol that we practice all the time, several times a year. >> i think teachers are heroes all around the country. >> absolutely. >> but we really see it at a time like this. >> absolutely. they did a wonderful job. >> i get text from people around the country all the time. why aren't there shelters in all schools? in new schools, are there -- are shelters being built, or is it just in old schools? >> there has been a focus on that in recent y

afterward, this is what was left of briarwood elementary school.s shouted at bretton, i love you. >> i love you! >> i love you too! we're okay! we're okay! >> everyone survived. the teachers say no one was hurt. >> and the sound, you could just hear it start to go away and i thought, we made it, we made it, thank you god. >> lynn says the advice she'd give to other teachers for a situation like that, count your kids, know who you have and stay calm. although she says that's next to impossible. brian todd, cnn, moore, oklahoma. >> and we invite you to go along with anderson cooper as he gets an up close look at the storm chasers who risk their lives to document these storms and show us the magnitude of their power. storm hunters in the path of disaster saturday night 7:00 eastern. so now i can help make this a great block party. ♪ [ male announcer ] advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help

plaza towers elementary school principal as well as shelly mcmillan of the briarwood elementary school principal. they were on the ground when this happened, and because of their quick response, their keeping a level head, their putting kids first, saved a lot of people. and they're still going through some tough times. you know, i can only imagine being their husbands who are here, and the panic that i'm sure they were feeling when the tornado first struck. but i know that they could not be prouder of their wives for the outstanding work they did in this amazing situation. i want to thank chief of police jerry stillings. and all of the first responders in this area who were some of the first folks on the scene. who were putting themselves at risk to save other people's lives. that's what first responders do, but sometimes we take them for granted. and it's important that we don't, and we remember moments like this. that's why it's so important that we continually support them. at my direction, craig fugate arrived here on tuesday. fema was on the ground even before monday's tornado hi

and we talked to some of the parents at briarwood.d, but there are no fatalities at that school. some of the children in closets, hiding under their desks. they did not have a shelter to go to. and at least at briarwood there were no fatalities. the children safe there. a much different story at tower plaza. it is believed seven children perished. >>> you are watching a very special edition of "cbs this morning". vs]# if yand you're talking toevere rheuyour rheumatologistike me, about trying or adding a biologic. this is humira, adalimumab. this is humira working to help relieve my pain. this is humira helping me through the twists and turns. this is humira helping to protect my joints from further damage. doctors have been prescribing humira for over ten years. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. for many adults, humira is proven to help relieve pain and stop further joint damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. se

this video at briarwood school during the giant twister touched down here shows those hellish early momentss almost over, it's almost over. amidst the chaos of crying children, scattered debris, the injured, teachers worked to beth reassure and regain order. >> what's your name? down there. sit down right here. [ children crying ] >> stay right here where you're safe and you're dry. >> reporter: at one point, one teacher appears to reunite with her own child. >> sam, honey, it's okay. >> i don't know what happened. >> it's okay, honey, it's okay. it's okay. it's okay. oh, my god, i can't even recognize it. >> i don't even know what it used to look like. >> oh, my god. >> reporter: the latest grim news from the medical examiner wednesday -- six of the seven children killed in plaza towers elementary one mile away from briarwood suffered affsphyxia, they were smothered by debris. the names and ages of all 24 confirmed death, the youngest 4 months old, the oldest, 65. 14 adults, 10 children, including two infants. in a town this small in the aftermath of a tornado this big, few were spared. gr

>> i'm located about six blocks south of the briarwood elementary school.o it is about ten miles from my office. so i drove home, packed up my wife, my child, my pets, drove back to norman to clear the path of the storm. >> so then what did you do after that? >> after i was quite certain that the tornado had crossed i-35, i returned to my house, put on my uniform, couldn't get anywhere -- >> was your house okay? >> had damage, minor damage, mostly roof, but put on my uniform, then i walked the six blocks to the school. >> then what was the scene at the school? >> it was pretty chaotic, a lot of parents, lot of responders, trying to figure out where i could fit in to help. >> how did you help? >> just helping coordinate getting people out of the school and then at some point caught a ride with another agency ambulance up to the warren theater to meet up with the crew. >> the scene at the school, you have parents who are arriving, were they allowed into the school? was there any restrictions on that? >> they weren't up in the rubble but were all around it obv

this is briarwood elementary school. they actually find them.r was there. >> reporter: families in the plaza towers neighborhood walked miles for debris and traffic to find their children. the two elementary schools destroyed by the tornado. 12k3w4r i couldn't get them on the phone. i thought the worst. >> reporter: you haven't seen them yet. >> no, but i have talked to them and they're fun. >> do you have anyone children? >> they're safe. >> reporter: where is your home? is anyone hurt? >> no. >> reporter: was anyone in the house at the time? >> he was in the house. >> reporter: this is the bartholomew family. they're walking to find daughters, a 5-year-old and a 9-year-old, two little girls who weathered the storm inside the elementary school. mom and dad are desperate to be reunited with their children. the two little ones, 7-year-old peyton and 9-year-old evan are desperate to find their sisters. hi. tell me who's at the school. >> ashley and miley. >> reporter: they're at the school. according to their mother. all of the children are accoun

go over here, briarwood elementary, pick up another 600 homes. we counted these on the sat late image. over this way, 500 homes over here and then about another 1,200 over here. you see you reach 3,500 homes that seem to be absolutely in the area that was just ripped apart by this storm, going right through here, all indications are the heaviest damage is in through here and as i said, about 3500 homes. there's going to be a lot of digging out and a lot of assessment of the damage over theex 24 hours. >> that search and rescue operation, as we can see, tom, already intense. as you give us good perspective, this is a pretty populated area, densely populated area, one of the major suburbs of oklahoma city, literally, touching oklahoma city. >> absolutely. this is a suburban area. as you were to go driving down the street before the storm, what you would see down this street is all sorts of popular restaurants and hotels and shopping centers. this is a lowe's over here, post office over here, bowling place, movie theater, as we mentioned. that repor

yet, everyone at briarwood elementary school survived.rian todd is "outfront" with what you're seeing now for the first time, amazing reporting taken by teachers at the instant the tornado tore apart their school. [ screaming ] >> reporter: that's the sound of the terrifying moments when the tornado hit. lynn and jessica are still shaken. their voices still quiver when they talk about it. monday afternoon when this massive tornado struck, they huddled with 25 kids inside a bathroom at briarwood elementary school. she says she covered two kids with her body and kept thinking -- >> don't let me die. just let me get the babies out of here. >> reporter: as the roof came off, listen to the audio recording on her cell phone of horrified kids. brentian trying to reassure them. [ screaming ] >> stay down! stay down! you're okay. you're okay. you're okay. you're okay. you're okay. you're okay. we're okay. we're okay. [ screaming ] >> i didn't know what to tell them. i just kept telling them we're okay. my mind, i was praying. >> i said, father, pr

this is briarwood elementary, the before, now look at the after this morning.veryone out there getting out alive. we've learned it was an ef-5 as it hit that school more than 200 miles per hour. this morning we hear from a father who raced to that school not knowing if his daughter was alive. 9-year-old janae hornsby, his her father was on the way to the school to pick up his daughter. he got stuck in traffic and couldn't get there in time. >> when i got to the school, it was completely gone. it was just rubble. there was no way to explain the anger and the sadness that i had >> reporter: overnight, authorities finishing their search of plaza towers, also promising to search every home here, every building three times to make sure no one is forgotten. >> the roof came off and then i looked up and there was a tornado. i saw it swirling then i saw wood and stuff swirling around. >> hey. >> reporter: but no more children have been discovered since monday. reuniting with their families. this morning, the puzzle remains. how did two schools take a direct hit, both b

. >> reporter: briarwood elementary and plaza tower elementary suffered different fates., in briarwood, they all got out. cindy teaches third grade. she saw topened the door and sa coming. >> i saw it coming right towards the school immediately. just ran over and got on top of the kids. i said this is not a drill. you're really going to have to get down, get your heads covered. >> reporter: one of those children, her own son. her body on top of his and several others as they cried for their own moms. >> they had desks and chairs and tables covering them. >> reporter: and teacher. another teacher urged her students to use their backpacks as shields. >> they were covering their heads with their backpacks. >> reporter: what were the kids saying during all of this. >> i want my mom. is this really happening? just screaming and crying. >> you formed a human chain with other teachers? >> yes, just to get them up and over the debris. >> reporter: their school destroyed, too. so how did the children get out when so many of the students at plaza towers did not? biddle believes the

everyone at briarwood got out safely. but at plaza towers, five miles away, they did not.. agonizing moments for parents waiting for word of their loved ones. >> they will not declare the structure clear until they are down to the ground and have been through every piece of rubble in the building. >> reporter: residents of moore are resilient. they rebuilt after a major tornado hit here in 1999. they say they will do it again. well the secretary of homeland security, janet napolitano will be here in oklahoma and missouri on wednesday morning. andy roesgen reporting in moore, oklahoma, john, diana. back to you. >> andy, let's talk about the survivors, so much devastation, rubble? where are they staying? enough places to house these people? >> exactly. in fact, there are estimated to be thousands of homeless people. it looks like, obviously a lot of them are spending time with relatives, but homeless shelters opened up for many folks. and universities are opening their doors up to the homeless. >> andy there has been major communication issues in moore. what is being done. w

emotional video shows terrified students emerging from briarwood after the storm. take a look. >> while the students here made it out safely, 7 students at plaza elementary school did not survive. anna kooiman is live for us on the ground she is in moore, oklahoma where the questions today are undoubtedly going to turn to school safety. good morning, anna. >> good morning to you and good morning to everybody at home. it is certainly heartbreaking and maddening all at the same time. it is hard to eeb recognize that that is the scene every where. we mentioned the elementary school a pile of twisted metal and a pile of bricks. it makes you wonder how on earth is so used to seeing tornadoes. this is the 4th one to show moore oklahoma since 1988. why aren't they better prepared? hindsight is 20/20 and emergency officials are saying no safety precautions are absolute. those two elementary schools did not have reinforced storm shelters. either way everybody is devastated in this part of the country at this hour. let's take a listen to some of the survivors. >> this is my

briarwood wiped to its foundation. incredibly, every student was accounted for. >> we were told to get in our tornado precaution system. but then they moved us to the boys and girls bathroom. >> reporter: but the scene playing out at plaza towers is much more devastating. a sole blackboard sticking out from the rubble. police say at least seven children have died there. at least two dozen more are missing. feared trapped beneath the rubble. >> the scene over there at the school is just catastrophic. it's just -- i mean there's chaos. i've never seen anything like it before. >> reporter: in the immediate aftermath of the twister, the chaos and confusion. this teacher battered and bruised carrying a child from the rubble. then the list, the names of the children who survived. and perhaps the most nerve-racking thing a parent can endure, racing to be reunited with a child you're not certain will be there. >> i'm just happy that i was able to find my son and my family is okay. >> reporter: at this checkpoint, we also found

joining us to talk about this is briarwood fourth grade teacher teresa mosier.nk you for joining us. >> thank you. >> as the reality of this starts to set in a little bit, how are you and the community doing? is. >> we're better with each passing day. we get better and stronger. and our spirit, you know, just is more resilient with every day. we're starting to see hope now and think about the rebuilding process. >> have you had an opportunity to speak with any of your students or any children in the area at all about how they're coping with something this huge? >> no, not yet. we plan on meeting with them today at one of the other elementary schools at 10:00. >> now you and your students survived by huddling along an interior wall. your school didn't have a safe room or a basement as your community starts rebuilding, do you think it makes sense to start mandating a public buildings, have some storm shelter or even build a community shelter? >> i don't think we'll even be able to rebuild without, you know, that being an issue and that being, you know, that not be

in this case, briarwood elementary. the national weather service telling us winds were more than 200 miles per hour at that point. as you're about to see, as that twister hovered over the school, it was pitch black, and terrifying inside. this is the moment the monstrous tornado hit briarwood elementary. for the first time, we see what students saw huddled in that bathroom. complete darkness. and this is what they heard. [ wind and screaming ] >> reporter: as the pressure from the tornado took hold of that school, that bathroom, felt the air pushing down. >> it's almost over. it's almost over! >> reporter: their teacher promising it would end. >> it's almost over. >> i hate this! >> reporter: you hear one of the students tell her, i hate this. >> honey, it's okay. it's almost over. it's almost over. it's almost over. >> reporter: you can hear the teacher with the whistle, trying to calm the students. >> keep your heads down! >> reporter: crying, they leave the bathroom. >> wow, oh, my god. oh, my god. oh, my god, my hou

just so happens they do not have them at the tower plaza school or briarwood at this point either. we told you that the tornado was now considered an ef-5. it made us think about how does the national weather service make that determination, especially after the tornado has already come through? i want to bring in the weather channel's mike seidel for insight on this. it's fascinating. a lot of people assumed it yesterday and they finally made it official. how do they make it official? >> well, they go out and do these damage assessments. and they were still doing them late yesterday, brian. we first had the fujita scale from 1971 on and then back in 2006, we revamped it over about a four-year period and introduced that in '06. the national weather service storm prediction center. now it's the enhanced fujita. we have a lot of damage indicators. we have a 28 damage indicators. we look at hotels, motels if they are damaged. multistory complexes. even gas station canopies. and as far as a home goes, a single or multifamily home, 1,000 to 5,000 square feet is on the chart and they loo

it's just crazy. >> thankfully everyone at briarwood was okay. much warning did you have that the storm was about to hit? >> i'd say we had about 20 minutes. there were rumors all day that we were going to have a tornado. we could see it on the horizon. we had the storm shelter ready. >> we can see a house kind of peeking out part of the shelter. did that house make it? >> the house made it pretty well. there's a lot of damage to the roof. the windows were busted out. further down on the left side of the street there were some that were completely wiped out. "once" y once you go on the back side of their fence, everything is completely flat. >> once the tornado passed, you came out of the shelter, what was that moment like? what do you see all around you? >> it's like a war zone. it's ridiculous. i mean, it's just hard to believe that something like that could just happen. i mean, that was the first tornado i had ever seen in person and i had been in oklahoma for over ten years. >> well, charles, i'm glad you're doing okay and that the house is o

we got and looked and at that time, all they was talking about was briarwood, briarwood, that it hadit briarwood, and nothing was actually even being said about plaza. and i didn't even actually know until my mom and my fiance got there and realized that plaza had actually been hit, and that it took me probably at least an hour to even get from where i was to get to moore, and then i ended up having to walk two miles to the school to find out, and the closer that i got, the harder it was because you were seeing all kinds of houses that were demolished or not even standing and once i got to the school, i just lost it. at this point, as i'm walking, i had gotten a text that my daughter had been pulled out and that she was okay, but my son still hadn't been accounted for. i honestly didn't realize until -- or find out until the next day about 8:30 in the morning that it was confirmed that they had had him and that he didn't survive. >> just an awful, awful moment. terrell, let me ask you about your nephew. what kind of boy was he? >> he was an outstanding child. the kind of child that e

one of the schools was the briarwood school.this is a good story we have to tell you about right now with some amazing pictures, some hopeful pictures that will lift your spirits. this is of the reunions just after the storm, just after that tornado hit near the briarwood school. look at the teachers with the kids. look at parents with their kids after they found them. let's watch this video. >> all fifth graders right here! >> step over here. fifth grade! fifth graders! >> thank you. thank you. >> he was so brave. he was so brave. he was so brave. he was so brave. he was so brave. >> these reunions are so amazing. part of the good news that we see here in moore, oklahoma. you see parents who simply cannot hug their kids tightly enough. that's the local story here. this is already a national story, international story. thoughts and prayers streaming in from around the world right now. when we come back, we'll hear from the president. we'll get a report from white house correspondent jessica yellin into the white house response.