Massive tornado roars through Oklahoma City suburb

— 216 deaths. April 5, 1936, in Tupelo, Miss.

— 203 deaths. April 6, 1936, in Gainesville, Ga.

— 181 deaths. April 9, 1947, in Woodward, Okla.

— 158 deaths. May 22, 2011, in Joplin, Mo.

— 143 deaths. April 24, 1908, in Amite, La., and Purvis, Miss.

— 116 deaths. June 8, 1953, in Flint, Mich.

— 114 deaths. May 11, 1953 in Waco, Texas.

— 114 deaths. May 18, 1902 in Goliad, Texas.

— 103 deaths. March 23, 1913, in Omaha, Neb.

Associated Press

A monstrous tornado at least a half-mile wide roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled against winds up to 200 mph.

At least 51 people were killed, including several children. Officials said the death toll was expected to rise.

The storm laid waste to scores of buildings in Moore, a community of 41,000 people about 10 miles south of the city. Block after block lay in ruins. Homes were crushed into piles of broken wood. Cars and trucks were left crumpled on the roadside.

The National Weather Service issued an initial finding that the tornado was an EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale, the second most-powerful type of twister.

More than 140 people were being treated at hospitals, including about 70 children. Search-and-rescue efforts were continuing through the night.

Tiffany Thronesberry said she heard from her mother, Barbara Jarrell, shortly after the tornado.

“I got a phone call from her screaming, ‘Help! Help! I can’t breathe. My house is on top of me!’ ” Thronesberry said.

Thronesberry hurried to her mother’s house, where first responders had already pulled her out. Her mother was hospitalized for treatment of cuts and bruises.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin deployed 80 National Guard members to assist with rescue operations and activated extra highway patrol officers.

Fallin also spoke with President Barack Obama, who offered the nation’s help and gave Fallin a direct line to his office.

Many phone lines to stricken areas were down, and cellphone networks were congested. The storm was so massive that it will take time to establish communications between rescuers and state officials, the governor said.

In video of the storm, the dark funnel cloud could be seen marching slowly across the green landscape. As it churned through the community, the twister scattered shards of wood, awnings and glass all over the streets.

Chris Calvert saw the menacing tornado from about a mile away.

“I was close enough to hear it,” he said. “It was just a low roar, and you could see the debris, like pieces of shingles and insulation and stuff like that, rotating around it.”

Even though his subdivision is a mile from the tornado’s path, it was still covered with debris. He found a picture of a small girl on Santa Claus’ lap in his yard.

Volunteers and first responders raced to search the debris for survivors.

At Plaza Towers Elementary School, the storm tore off the roof, knocked down walls and turned the playground into a mass of twisted plastic and metal.

Children from the school were among the dead, but several students were pulled alive from the rubble.

James Rushing, who lives across the street from the school, heard reports of the approaching twister and ran to the school, where his 5-year-old foster son, Aiden, attends classes. Rushing believed he would be safer there.

“About two minutes after I got there, the school started coming apart,” he said.

The students were sent into the restroom.

A man with a megaphone stood near a Catholic church Monday evening and called out the names of surviving children. Parents waited nearby, hoping to hear their sons’ and daughters’ names.

Don Denton hadn’t heard from his two sons since the tornado hit the town, but the man who has endured six back surgeries and walks with a severe limp said he walked about two miles as he searched for them.

As reports of the storm came in, Denton’s 16-year-old texted him, telling him to call.

“I was trying to call him, and I couldn’t get through,” Denton said.

As dusk began to fall, heavy equipment was brought to the school, and emergency workers wearing yellow crawled among the ruins, searching for survivors.

Because the ground was muddy, bulldozers and front-end loaders were getting stuck. Crews used jackhammers and sledgehammers to tear away concrete, and chunks were being thrown to the side as the workers dug.

Douglas Sherman drove two blocks from his home to help.

“Just having those kids trapped in that school, that really turns the table on a lot of things,” he said.

Oklahoma City Police Capt. Dexter Nelson said downed power lines and open gas lines posed a risk in the aftermath of the system.

A map provided by the National Weather Service showed that the storm began west of Newcastle and crossed the Canadian River into Oklahoma City’s rural far southwestern side about 3 p.m. When it reached Moore, the twister cut a path through the center of town before lifting back into the sky at Lake Stanley Draper.

A tornado warning was in effect for 16 minutes before the tornado developed, according to the weather service.

People sought refuge wherever they could — in hallways, shelters, horse stalls.

In southwest Oklahoma City, cars were smashed and sitting upside down atop houses that had been reduced to rubble. People dug through destroyed homes even as strong storms remained a threat.

Giant hail was falling as Chad Bartlett and his wife, Helen, were driving to his son’s high school in Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon. The drive was treacherous.

“With the rain you couldn’t see the car in front of you,” Bartlett said.

The roads were congested as other people tried to flee the area. “There was wind and hail. The radios were blaring with the National Weather Service and sirens,” said Bartlett, a pastor. “I drove to the school just praying the whole way.”

Monday’s devastation in Oklahoma came almost exactly two years after an enormous twister ripped through the city of Joplin, Mo., killing 158 people and injuring hundreds more.

That May 22, 2011, tornado was the deadliest in the United States since modern tornado record keeping began in 1950, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.