A mile-wide tornado ripped through the Oklahoma City suburb on Monday devastating the area and claiming as many as 91 lives, including at least 20 children, with 24 more missing among the debris and rubble of their elementary school.
Recently several children who survived the twister's destruction spoke with MSN Today and shared their stories with a reporter.
Damien, a fourth-grader who attended the now destroyed Plaza Towers Elementary School, told Today that he was in class when the tornado hit ground.
"We were in class and then all we heard was the sirens go off, and then we all ran into the hallway," he said. "Some of us had a math book and some of us had our backpacks, and then [the sirens] went off again, and then we ducked again and then we went in the bathroom. And then they went off again, and then we heard the tornado and it sounded like a train coming by, and then we were all in cover, and a teacher took cover of us, Ms. Crosswhite."
The teacher, Ms. Crosswhite, threw her body over Damien and several other students to protect them. Damien said he told his teacher that he and his friend were fine as they were holding onto something, and then his teacher went over to another student to cover him as well.
"She saved our lives," Damien said, who said it felt like "about 5 minutes" for the tornado to pass over them. When he stood and looked around, all he saw was "a disaster."
"There was a bunch of stuff just thrown around the cars were tipped over," he said. He said that he knew most of us fellow students were okay.
Damien's mother, Brandy, said she was at work and sent to the basement when the tornado hit, and she and her co-workers were watching the news from someone's phone.
"As soon as we were cleared, I headed home," she said. "About 45 minutes later they finally got a hold of me from their cell phones but it was panic until then."
She said she raced to the school as soon as she could, and afterwards walked to her home nearby, finding most of it gone.
"Everyone around lost everything," she said. "But we have our kids." She said that although her neighbors lost everything, she still has half of her home. "All that stuff's fine as long as I have my kids."
Damien's brother said he was in the "girl's bathroom" at school when the tornado hit.
"After it passed I could see the debris flying over, and it sounded like a train," he said.
One woman who appeared on KFOR said that her son's teacher at Briarwood Elementary School saved his life. She said that his first grade teacher, Cynthia Lowe, "lifted a wall off the boy as the tornado pummeled the school."
Brady, a sixth-grader at Briarwood, told KOCO-TV that he and other students ran into a bathroom to escape from the twister.
"Cinderblocks and everything collapsed on them but they were underneath so that kind of saved them a little bit, but I mean they were trapped in there," he said.
One mother told CNN the story of her family's desperation to round up her family after the twister hit, and described her relief when she realized that her kids were OK.
"As soon as I walked through the building I mean I was a little hysterical," she said to CNN, according to the Daily Mail. "I was running through the building barefoot and just screaming their names and each one of my kids stood up and they came with me."
