DISASTERS: TORNADOES : COUNTRIES: UNITED STATES: STATES: OKLAHOMA : CHILDREN : EDUCATION: K-12: SCHOOLS: Drama as Alarm Sirens Wailed

[David P. Dillard]

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DISASTERS: TORNADOES :

COUNTRIES: UNITED STATES: STATES: OKLAHOMA :

CHILDREN:

Drama as Alarm Sirens Wailed

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Drama as Alarm Sirens Wailed

Time Reveals Lower Death Toll From Oklahoma Tornado

By MANNY FERNANDEZ and JACK HEALY

Published: May 21, 2013

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/us/oklahomatornado.html

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MOORE, Okla. At the end of the day on Monday, on the last week of the
school year, students at Plaza Towers Elementary in this blue-collar
suburb were zipping their backpacks. A fifth-grade class had just finished
watching a movie about a boy who survives a crash-landing in the Canadian
wilderness.

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Then the sirens started to wail.

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Claire Gossetts teacher hurried the class into the hallway, then into a
bathroom as a tornado that was more than a mile wide drew closer. Claire,
11, crammed into a stall with six other girls. They held onto each other.
The sirens wailed two, three, four times.

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snip

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The mountain of rubble that was once Plaza Towers Elementary School has
become the emotional and physical focal point of one of the most
destructive tornadoes to strike Oklahoma. Although the casualty toll
fluctuated wildly early on, officials said on Tuesday that at least 24
people had died, including 9 children, 7 of them at Plaza Towers.

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Throughout the 500-student school, teachers and parents had shielded
students and crammed into closets and anywhere else they could squeeze as
the tornado bore down. Then school windows were smashed and the ceiling
ripped away, showering the students with glass, wood and pieces of
insulation. "I couldn't hear anything but people screaming and crying,"
Claire said. "It felt like the school was just flying."

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snip

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At a news conference on Tuesday in the lobby of Moore City Hall, which was
running on generators because of a widespread power failure, Gov. Mary
Fallin said she took an aerial tour of the tornado's path and inspected
the damage by car and on foot. She said she was left speechless. "There's
just sticks and bricks, basically," she said, adding, "It was very surreal
coming upon the school because there was no school. There was just
debris."

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snip

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President Obama, who declared a federal disaster in five Oklahoma
counties, said Tuesday at the White House that the tornado had been "one
of the most destructive in history," and that he had informed aides that
"Oklahoma needs to get everything it needs right away." He said Federal
Emergency Management Agency officials had been dispatched to aid in the
recovery.

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"For all those who've been affected, we recognize that you face a long
road ahead," Mr. Obama said. "In some cases, there will be enormous grief
that has to be absorbed. But you will not travel that path alone."

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snip

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Jennifer Doan, a Plaza Towers teacher who is eight weeks pregnant, waited
anxiously in a hallway with 11 of her third-grade students who had not yet
been picked up by their parents. An announcement blared over the intercom
that the tornado was upon them, and Ms. Doan, 30, quickly wrapped several
of her students in her arms. The walls suddenly caved in, she told her
boyfriend, Nyle Rogers.

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Ms. Doan was conscious, buried under piles of rubble, but she was not sure
her students were safe. She thought she could make out their movement
beneath the debris. "She kept telling them to hang on," Mr. Rogers said.

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snip

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She was lifted out of the rubble, put in the back of a pickup truck and
shuttled to a nearby church and then to the hospital, where she was in
stable condition on Tuesday with a fractured sternum and spine. A piece of
rebar speared her left hand.

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On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Rogers said he was informed by the principal
that seven of the students in the hallway had died. He had not yet told
Ms. Doan.

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"She's just worried about her kids," he said. "That's all she's thinking
about right now."

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But the principal told him something else. Two of the students she had
wrapped in her arms had survived.

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The complete article may be read at the URL above.

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Sincerely,
David Dillard
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