Sue Ogrocki / AP

A child is pulled from the rubble of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., and passed along to rescuers on May 20.

Rhonda Crosswhite, a sixth-grade math at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., said the idea that school might be canceled Monday because of a looming tornado had never even crossed her mind.

“We never think that’s an option,” Crosswhite told NBC News. “We live in Oklahoma. Tornadoes happen all the time.”

The massive tornado that tore through Moore and killed 24 people bore down hard on Plaza Towers, where children sheltered inside from the roaring gusts, even as the building began to come apart around them.

The seven students who were killed at Plaza Towers, a single-story cinder block building that was leveled in the storm, were found dead in a pool of water, authorities said. Another student died at Briarwood Elementary, less than two miles away.

Richard Rowe / Reuters

Rescue workers look through the rubble at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., on May 21, after a devastating tornado ripped through the town on May 20.

Tracy Stephan told NBC News that she went to Plaza Towers to pick up her daughter, who suffers from autism and epilepsy, before the tornado hit. She found the doors locked, with the tornado bearing down on her.

“Eventually after five minutes after not getting through, I turned back home and I decided to put my faith and trust in God the school was going to be OK,” the mother of three told NBC News. She ran back to the school after the twister passed, and found her daughter outside in the parking lot with other kindergartners.

“I grabbed her and wrapped her in my arms,” said Stephan.

Levi Hendricks also sped toward the school as the tornado took aim, to pick up his eleven-year-old granddaughter Kimberly. The fourth-grader meanwhile was crouched with some of her classmates in a bathroom and then a hallway.

After the tornado passed through, they found a way out of the demolished school.

“She was already out,” when he arrived at the school, Hendricks said. “They had an organized area where all the kids gathered at.”

Hendrick’s house, the back door of which once faced Plaza Towers’ busy playground, was flattened by the tornado.

“The playground was always full of kids, always even after school the kids all went up there and hung out because the playground was such a nice place for them to play at,” Hendricks said. “It was a nice family school. People who went there, now their kids are going there.”

In the aftermath of the storm, the First Baptist Church of Moore, about three and half miles from Plaza Towers, became a gathering place for students from all of the city’s schools who had not found their guardians, church spokesman Joey Dean said.

“We got word from the schools that they were going to bus all the kids who had not been picked up by their parents yet,” Dean said. Teachers and counselors shuttled over the students in their personal cars.

“Most them went home, and those who didn’t have homes, they spent the night,” Dean said.

Children in the city’s schools regularly prepare for the possibility of a tornado, district employees said.

“We have tornado and fire drills periodically throughout the year,” said Noah Minton, a psychologist for the Moore Public School district.

“They have drills, they have proposals they follow, but something this large, you get out of the way,” Minton said.

U.S. Representative Tom Cole, a resident of Moore, said on MSNBC that Plaza Towers was one of the most structurally sound buildings in the area.

“Yesterday our administrators, staff, teachers and students put our crisis plan into action immediately,” Moore Public Schools Superintendent Susan Pierce said at a press conference on Tuesday. “A tornado’s path is very unpredictable, but with little notice we implemented our tornado shelter procedures at every school site.”

City disaster plans and school documents show that officials had thought through what to do in the event of a tornado. They also suggest, however, that officials did not anticipate a disaster of this scale.

If a tornado came during the school day, teachers were instructed to have the students remain in their classrooms unless told to take them elsewhere, according to a cached version of the district’s 2012-2013 handbook for elementary school students and parents.

“Sudden tornadoes are a common occurrence in Oklahoma, especially in the spring of the year. Each of our schools has a tornado procedure, and the faculty and students have storm drills periodically,” the handbook reads. “If severe weather is rapidly approaching at the time of dismissal, students will be held at the school until the danger is passed. If there is a tornado warning but no immediate danger, school will be dismissed on schedule.”

The city of Moore does not have any community tornado shelters, according to the city’s department of emergency management website. The guidelines posted online also refer to the May 3, 1999 tornado outbreak that killed 36 others and injured 295 more.

“If we are struck again, it will very likely be by a much less intense storm,” the website says. “Sheltering in your residence – assuming it is a reasonably well-constructed home – is the best option.”

Hendricks said he thinks the instructions to shelter at Plaza Towers might have saved his granddaughter’s life.

“I do know there was a lot of lost lives, but I think there would have been a lot more if they let them out,” Hendricks said.

Related:

• 'Always smiling': First tornado victim identified
• 'The streets are just gone': Oklahoma rescue efforts continue
• Officials: Grants to build 'safe rooms' delayed by red tape
• 'The school just started coming apart': Trapped students had nowhere to hide
• Full coverage of the Oklahoma tornado tragedy

Google

Google's Crisis Response Center provides information and compiles resources to aid tornado survivors and their loved ones.

In the aftermath of one of the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history, many are desperately trying to reach loved ones in areas affected by the disastrous event. Google and the Red Cross are helping confirm the safety of tornado survivors, while the Oklahoma Humane Society and Reddit users band together to take care of missing pets.

Google Crisis Response Center and Person Finder
Google has set up a Crisis Response Center page on which it provides shelter information, weather reports, public alerts and links to a variety of resources to aid those in or around the towns of Moore, Newcastle and southern portions of Oklahoma City. The search giant has also enabled the Google Person Finder tool at a plain and simple-to-use site for sharing and gathering information about those missing after the tornado. The tool was originally created after the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

As with previous versions of the tool, all someone needs to do is enter as much of a person's name as he or she knows and Google will provide any related information — including last known location, physical descriptions, last reported status and messages left by those searching for the individual.

Those seeking to add information to the database will need to provide the full name of the individual they've got information about, as well as their own names and e-mail addresses.

The American Red Cross' 'Safe and Well'
The American Red Cross' "Safe and Well" page is also serving as a way to confirm that loved ones are doing all right. It functions similarly to the Google Person Finder, but instead focuses on individuals listing themselves as "safe and well," in addition to letting others search for loved ones.

Oklahoma Humane Society
Efforts are being made to ensure that pets make their ways home safely as well. The Oklahoma Humane Society is doing its best to house and treat lost and injured animals. The organization's Development Office, which is collecting donations for a disaster relief fund, can be reached at (405) 607-8991.

Reddit
Reddit users are banding together to keep track of lost and found pets in the town of Moore. Photos of, and information about, lost and found animals is easily searchable on the site.

Facebook
A Facebook page, May 19th 2013 OK Tornado Doc & Picture Recovery, is helping unite photos and documents scattered by the tornado with survivors. 

Related:

• Full coverage of Oklahoma tornadoes
• Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage Plains
• How to help tornado victims

Want more tech news or interesting links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

A tornado that devastated Oklahoma City's suburbs has left dozens of people dead, numerous injured and missing and countless homes destroyed. As rescue workers continue to pick through the rubble, hoping to find survivors, here are some accounts from those who did make it out.

Hero teacher: Student said, 'I love you, please don't die with me'
Rhonda Crosswhite, a teacher in hard-hit Moore, Okla., ushered her students into bathroom stalls as the tornado descended right onto Plaza Towers Elementary School. As she laid on top of the kids, one had a plea: "One of my little boys, he just kept saying, 'I love you, I love you, please don't die with me,'" Crosswhite told TODAY on Tuesday.

Every one of Crosswhite's students made it out, she said. One had a head cut, but everyone else was totally fine — other than Crosswhite, who has cuts all over her body and feet.

"I never thought I was going to die," she said, "The whole time, I just kept screaming to them, 'Quit worrying, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine,' and I'm very loud. I just kept hoping they could hear me because I could hear them screaming."

Crosswhite said she said a few prayers as the powerful tornado blew over them. 

"It was like a freight train," she said. "It felt like someone was beating me from behind."

Fourth grader: Teacher 'saved our lives'
One of Rhonda Crosswhite's students who endured the chaos was fourth-grader Damian Britton, who survived by hiding out in the bathroom of Plaza Towers Elementary School.

"A teacher took cover of us. Miss Crosswhite," Damian told TODAY on Tuesday. "She was covering me and my friend Zachary. I told her that we were fine because we were holding onto something. And then she went over to my friend Antonio and covered him. So she saved our lives."

After the storm blew through the school, "it was just a disaster," Damian said. Cars were strewn all over the property; the odor of gas wafted through the air. Damian survived without a scratch, but half of his home was destroyed, his mom, Brandi Kline said.

"All of our neighbors lost everything," she said. "As long as I have my kids, that's all that matters."

KFC cook's YouTube video goes viral
Newcastle, Okla., KFC cook Michael Welch got distracted during his shift on Monday by the sound of hail pounding the parking lot. Armed with his cellphone, the 24-year-old went outside, where he saw the wall cloud of a gigantic tornado rotating in front of him. 

“It was very large and very fast,” he said.  “I could see debris flying all over.”

Instead of going inside to take shelter, like most of his coworkers decided to do, he ran into the parking lot and filmed the twister with his phone. 

“Probably not the best thing to do, but I did it,” he said.

His video, seen now by hundreds of thousands on YouTube and on NBCNews.com, gives a street-level view of the funnel cloud that plowed through Newcastle and Moore. 

'We thought we died'
For one resident of Moore, surviving the twister was a terrifying experience, especially after it tore off the door of the cellar he was sheltering in.

"We thought we died because we were inside the cellar. We locked the cellar door once we saw it coming. It got louder and next thing you know, you see the latch coming undone, and it ripped open the door," Ricky Stover said, his voice breaking as he held back tears.

"Glass and debris started slamming on us, so we thought we were dead," he added.

Three-time tornado survivors: 'We were lucky'
Charles and Sandra Marsh have lived in the same subdivision in Moore since 1978. Since then, they have seen three tornadoes barrel through, including Monday's and 1999's EF-5 twister. Before Monday's came through at 2:30 p.m. local time, the Marshes decided to drive to Norman, just south of Moore, to wait out the storm in a shopping mall, not knowing what they would come home to — if anything.

When they came home, they discovered their house was one of the few still standing in the subdivision. 

"My ex- son-in-law and ex- father-in-law lost their houses. They lost everything," Charles Marsh said. "We were lucky."

The house had a little damage in the back, but the Marshes slept there Monday night, huddling under a blanket for warmth.

"I think the structure is sound," Charles Marsh said. "It's livable." 

Down the road, their children's former school got blown away. The Marshes still hadn't heard from their friends as of Tuesday to confirm that they were alright, but Charles Marsh said he was grateful that his family was fine.

"My kids — they're all OK," he said, tears in his eyes.

Family finds their chihuahuas in rubble of their house
After the tornado flattened their home in Moore, two members of the Hendricks household were still missing: Lola and Louie, a pair of chihuahuas. The family's two other dogs had been found under a pile of debris in the backyard after the tornado, but Lola and Louie were nowhere to be found until Tuesday morning. That was when Levi Hendricks came back to the rubble that used to be his house and heard the faint sound of dogs whining.

"That's how we pinpointed where they were at and started digging at that point," Hendricks said. “Their kennel was smashed down on top of them. The car was sitting on top of the kennel. We had to pry the kennel out from underneath the car and then pry the kennel apart to get them out.”

Kael Alford/NBC News

Leslie Hendricks, 27 and her father Levi Hendricks Sr., 53 rescued their dogs from the rubble of their house in Moore, Oklahoma after a massive tornado touched down there yesterday.

Hendricks and his two sons started digging, and reached Louie, 3, and Lola, 2, who were both fine.

“They were both wrapped around each other and inside a comforter. They were toasty warm,” he said. “And both of them were just tickled to death to get out.”

'The worst thing I have ever seen'
Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Betsy Randolph arrived in Moore on Monday after the afternoon tornado hit to help victims, and told The Oklahoman the devastation was "the worst thing I have ever seen."

"I saw a lot of walking wounded — people with blood all over. It was a matter of putting work gloves on and getting to work,” she told the paper. “We hope that we don't have any more fatalities, but we know there are a lot more people trapped tonight.”

She urged people to stay away from the area, which was being kept clear for emergency responders.

'Car parts in my bedroom'
Melanie Shelton, a Moore resident, barely made it out of her apartment complex as the tornado chased her and her son-in-law down the road on Monday. 

"Behind us, you could just see it," she told CBS Oklahoma affiliate news9.com. "It just looked like bombs had been ignited everywhere. There's car parts in my bedroom. Everything's gone. Just in a matter of 30 minutes, your whole life is gone."

She had been alone in her apartment in Moore when her son-in-law came frantically knocking on the door just before the tornado hit and urged her to leave. The two of them "booked it to Norman," a 10-mile drive south from Moore.

"If I would have stayed, I may not have been here," Shelton told news9.com. 

NBC News' Miranda Leitsinger and NBC News contributor Alex Hannaford contributed to this report.

Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage Plains

Ed Zurga / EPA

A monster tornado hit Moore, Okla., Monday afternoon, leaving at least 24 dead as the threat of further storms continues.

Launch slideshow

Full tornado coverage:

• The latest on the Oklahoma tornado
• Photos and videos from the ground
• How to help Oklahoma tornado victims
• Oklahoma school survivor: Teacher threw herself over us and 'saved our lives'
• 'The school started coming apart': Trapped students had nowhere to hide
• Before and after: Tornado cuts devastating path through Oklahoma
  

This story was originally published on Tue May 21, 2013 10:16 AM EDT

Glen Adkisson via Facebook

This photo was posted on Facebook by Glen Adkisson after tornadoes struck Oklahoma on Monday. "This was in our yard 5/20/2013...Collinsville," he wrote.

The photo shows a baby in diapers on a high chair gazing at a white cake with one pink candle.  

Glen Adkisson of Collinsville, Okla., posted on Facebook that it had been found "in our yard" following Monday's devastating tornadoes.

Allison Messer via Facebook

This photo was posted on Facebook by Allison Messer after a tornado struck Oklahoma, with the message "Found in our pasture between Stroud & Depew. Would love to find the momma this belongs too."

The message below reads: "This photo is of my sisters deceased husband when he was a child. We are from Shawnee Oklahoma. She did live in the trailer park. She and my 7 year old nephew lost their home. I will try to contact u va Facebook. Bless you for posting this!"

This exchange appears on a Facebook page -- May 19th 2013 OK Tornado Doc & Picture Recovery -- set up to return photos and documents to victims of a deadly storm system that has ripped across the state. 

Early Tuesday, the page included hundreds of family photos and documents.  A picture of a cat with one blue eye sat next to another of a woman in a camp chair holding two blond and grinning children. A grimy electricity bill was next to the stained photograph of a toddler sitting on Santa's knee.  An ultrasound photo showed what appeared to be a baby in utero.

Some postings had happy endings, with pets and pictures being reunited with their families.

A photo of a brown-haired young man cuddling a smiling girl with long caramel-colored hair elicited an overjoyed response from Dana Davis: “this is my picture it was in my room at my sisters and her house got destroyed by the tornado by lake thunderbird !”

Becky Miller, one of the page’s administrators, knew the photos and documents that landed on the ground as so-called falling debris, might look like detritus but were in fact irreplaceable artifacts or documents for somebody.  

This photo was posted on Facebook by Kristi Hodge after a tornado struck Oklahoma with the message "Found 2 miles south of Ramona at 815 PM floating from the sky."

“People had falling debris 100 miles away – people were saying it is raining debris in the yard,” said the resident of Liberty, Okla., which is about two hours away from Oklahoma City.  “That’s what started it. I wanted people reunited with precious pictures or colored pictures – you can’t replace those in a disaster.”

Indeed, Jeremy-Trista Blevins posted a ripped picture of three children – the smallest a bald and smiling baby – that she says she found in Sand Spring, 119 miles from where the hurricane struck.

The page, which was started by Leslie Edgar Hagelberg, Miller’s cousin, and her sister, Sarah Miller-Deibert, quickly turned into a sort of clearing house, attracting others trying to help those in need.

Diana Gann’s plea for help subduing a traumatized mule prompted almost 150 responses. 

A posting originally on Photos of Moore Oklahoma Tornado Pets Lost & Found and cross-linked on May 19^th 2013 OK Tornado Doc showed a nervous-looking black lab.

"3 dogs rescued from Moore tornado! Bathed, and cared for at rescuers home. Want to reunite them back with their families," the message with the photo read. "Prayer to all our furry friends and families."

Erin Lang via Facebook

Erin Lang posted this photo on Facebook after Monday's tornado in Moore, Okla., writing: "3 dogs rescued from Moore tornado! Bathed, and cared for at rescuers home. Want to reunite them back with their families. Please spread the word and contact Erin Lang or Carey Ralstin on Facebook! Prayer to all our furry friends and families."

And down the page another message from Farah Payton-Snider declared: "The black Lab is my (friend's)... dog Tin. Please call me ASAP."

Payton-Snider, 36, said she would close her flower shop and head into Oklahoma City first thing in the morning to try and help reunite people who had been hit by the tornado with their pets.

"I feel helpless, I want to be able to do something," said Payton-Snider, who lives in Newcastle, Okla.  

Related:

• Full coverage of Oklahoma tornadoes

• Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage Plains

• How to help tornado victims

This story was originally published on Tue May 21, 2013 6:21 AM EDT

Sue Ogrocki / AP

A child calls to his father after being pulled from the rubble of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., on Monday.

When the sirens began blaring and teachers at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., heard that a monstrous tornado was roaring toward their 57-year-old school and its youngest students, there was nowhere to hide.

They crouched in hallways and bathrooms, waiting, hoping and praying. Then "the school started coming apart," one neighbor who sought shelter at the school told the Associated Press. A teacher told NBC station KFOR that she draped herself on top of six children in a bathroom to shelter them.

The massive twister scored a direct hit at 3 p.m. (4 p.m. ET), tearing off the roof of the mostly one-story public school, a cinder-block building that had no chance of withstanding shrieking winds that may have topped 200 mph -- the powerful outer edge of what the National Weather Service said was at least an EF4 tornado, the second-most-powerful rating.

By Tuesday morning, the death toll at the school stood at seven. Officials said the children drowned in a pool of water at the decimated school. Rescuers were continuing to dig through the school’s rubble, from which several children were pulled out alive Monday evening.

It's unclear if any other children were killed or trapped alive.

Hysterical parents who had converged on the sprawling pile of broken concrete and twisted metal were later taken to a church to await word on the fate of their youngsters.

The two-mile-wide tornado wiped out entire city blocks of Moore, the hardest-hit Oklahoma City suburb, killing at least 24 people, the state medical examiner office confirmed. Many of the dead are children.

Exactly what transpired at Plaza Towers in the minutes before the tornado unleashed its destructive power has yet to be described. School officials evacuated fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders to a church about a quarter-mile away before it touched down, but the younger students – kindergartners through third graders – remained at the 440-student school, according to KFOR in Oklahoma City. It was not immediately known why school officials divided the students.

Bing (top) | AP (bottom)

Before and after aerial photos of Plaza Towers Elementary School.

But Mayer Nudell, a security and safety consultant, did not fault the decision to ride out the storm at the school.

“For something like a tornado, it’s fairly academic,” he said of the options that school officials would have had once the sirens began. “You don’t go out, and you don’t have much warning.”

Despite the carnage at the school, “shelter in place” has emerged as a staple of disaster planning and the strategy of choice for a range of emergencies, including tornadoes. And studies show it has a good track record of saving lives.

On May 3, 1999, for example, when another monster tornado roared through Moore, some 300 students and their parents were attending an awards ceremony in the West Moore High School auditorium. Though the twister badly damaged the school and tossed 150 cars in the parking lot like tinker-toys, those who hunkered down in the school’s hallways suffered only a few superficial injuries.

But there are experts who say that having a large number of people crowded into a big building is a bad idea when maximum-force tornadoes are sweeping through an area.

Chief among them is Joe R. Eagleman, a professor emeritus of the University of Kansas and author of “Severe and Unusual Weather,” a meteorology standard since it was first published in 1983.

He agrees that there was likely insufficient time between the first warning and the time the tornado hit the school, constructed in 1966, for Plaza Towers administrators to consider sending students home. “If time is short, being caught out in the open is not good,” he said.

But he said dispersing the students to their homes would have improved their odds.

“If there is sufficient warning time, the homes would be typically safer because they are smaller buildings and offer more opportunity to get in a downwind corner of the likely approach,” he said.

Eagleman is widely credited with debunking what was the prevailing school of thought on tornadoes for much of the last century: that the safest spot to take shelter is the southwest corner of a building. The reasoning behind the fallacy was that, since most U.S. tornadoes travel from west-southwest to the east-northeast, a twister would hurl debris into the northeast corner of whatever building it hit, likely taking out anyone cowering there.

But Eagleman conducted an extensive study after an EF5 tornado hit Topeka, Kan., in 1966, and found that the southwest corner – the direction from which a tornado was most likely to approach – was in fact the most dangerous area to hide.

“It used to be a rule that the southwest corner was the safest, no questions asked, but it was not based on any data,” he said.

Once Plaza Towers officials made the decision to have the students and teachers shelter in place, the school’s disaster plan would have kicked in. The staff and student body would likely have been well-coached, given the school’s location in “Tornado Alley” and Moore’s history of destructive tornadoes, though Eagleman noted that “it varies all over the place as to what the planning has been for severe storms.”

In any case, students would have been moved into a hallway or small room away from the southwest corner of the building and any windows and instructed to either sit or crouch.

“You want a place that is structurally secure, without windows, so you don’t have to worry about flying glass,” said Nudell, who also is an adjunct professor of security management at Webster University in Webster Groves, Mo., and co-author of “The Handbook for Effective Emergency and Crisis Management.”

Both men said the school’s construction would have been important to its ability to withstand a powerful twister.

“The buildings that are made of reinforced concrete are typically very sturdy,” Eagleman said. “Those made with concrete blocks are not.”

But given the destruction visible after the tornado swept through Moore, it’s possible that no building would have withstood the intense pressure that the tornado brought to bear on the building, Nudell said.

Nudell also cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the emergency planning or safety of the school.

“When you get a tornado like the one that it sounds like hit Oklahoma, sometimes all the preparation and planning in the world doesn’t help you,” he said.

NBC News' Erin McClam and Tracy Connor contributed to this report.

Related stories: 

• Monster tornado tears through Oklahoma
• Six of the worst tornadoes in US history
• Full coverage of Oklahoma tornadoes from NBC News

Michael Welch was midshift into his job at KFC in Newcastle, Okla., on Monday afternoon when he noticed hail pounding the parking lot outside the restaurant.

Then, as he looked into the distance, he saw the wall cloud of an enormous tornado rotating in front of him.

“It was very large and very fast,” he said.  “I could see debris flying all over.”

The 24-year-old cook grabbed his HTC cell phone and dashed into the parking lot and started recording video. “Probably not the best thing to do, but I did it.”

Most of his coworkers took shelter, but his manager stayed at the door while he filmed, Welch said.

“Oh, my God!” he screams on his video -- seen by thousands on NBC News and YouTube -- as the tornado, which killed at least 24 people and injured scores more in the area, passes. 

He said an F4 tornado that hit his house in Blanchard on May 24, 2011, helped alleviate his fear.

“I think that gave me the courage to go ahead and go outside,” he said. “The power of the funnel cloud was amazing."

He said he had no idea a storm was coming until he saw it with his own eyes.

But now, his YouTube video showing a street-level view of the massive tornado plowing through Newcastle and Moore stands as an iconic record of the day’s event.

“I’ve talked to so many people today I can’t even count ,” he said.

Related:

• Monster tornado deals death, destruction in Oklahoma
• Children found drowned in tornado-flattened school
• Video: Timelapse – nightmare in the suburbs
• Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage Plains
• What you're seeing: Videos, images from ground
• Six of the worst twisters in U.S. history
• Curse or coincidence? Scientists study Tornado Alley’s past, future
• How to help tornado victims

At least 51 people, including 20 children, were among the victims of an enormous tornado that roared through the suburbs of Oklahoma City Monday, pulverizing entire city blocks and leaving behind miles of mangled cars and splintered wood.

Officials warned the death toll was likely to climb, making it among the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history.

Forecasters warned that more "large and devastating" tornadoes were possible Tuesday with cities including Dallas-Ft. Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Shreveport, Texarkana and Little Rock potentially at risk.

At one hospital, 85 patients, including 65 children, were being treated for minor to critical injuries.

Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage Plains

Sue Ogrocki / AP

A monster tornado hit Moore, Okla., Monday afternoon, leaving scores dead as the threat for more storms continues.

Launch slideshow

“The whole city looks like a debris field,” said Mayor Glenn Lewis of the city of Moore, which appeared to be the hardest hit.

One of the many buildings to be totally destroyed was the Plaza Towers Elementary School where seven children drowned in a pool of water. The tornado tore the roof off the school about 3 p.m. local time. A teacher told NBC station KFOR that she draped herself on top of six children in a bathroom to shelter them.

It was not clear how many children still were missing. Students in fourth, fifth and sixth grade were evacuated to a church, but students in lower grades had sheltered in place, KFOR reported. More than two hours after the tornado struck, several children were pulled out alive.

The twister was a mile wide at its base, according to The Weather Channel. A reporter for KFOR said the tornado kicked up a cloud of debris perhaps two miles wide. The National Weather Service initially classified the storm as an EF4, the second-strongest type, with winds of 166 to 200 mph.

“It seems that our worst fears have happened today,” said Bill Bunting, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Norman, Okla.

Even before the death toll began to climb, television footage showed a landscape shattered — not the arbitrary damage of a tornado that leaves some homes untouched, but vast and utter obliteration.

Emergency workers stepped gingerly around piles of wreckage left on the foundations of homes. Other people simply walked around, dazed. Fires broke out in several places.

“I lost everything,” one man said as he walked through the ruins of a horse farm. “We might have one horse left out of all of them.”

Tiffany Thronesberry told the Associated Press that her mother, Barbara Jarrell, called her and screamed: “Help! Help! I can’t breathe! My house is on top of me!”

At one hospital in Moore, cars were “piled like Hot Wheels” in the parking lot, and police were searching them one by one and spray-painting X’s to mark them clear of victims, said Kurt Gwartney, news director for radio station KGOU.

An Oklahoma emergency management spokesman said a hospital was being evacuated after sustaining severe damage, and 16 ambulances were being sent to move patients. It was not clear whether it was the same hospital.

The tornado struck at mid-afternoon and tore a 20-mile path, said Rick Smith, another weather service meteorologist. He said it was on the ground for 40 minutes. Much of the storm’s rampage was captured on live television, perhaps alerting people in its path to seek shelter.

President Barack Obama declared a major disaster, making federal aid available to people in five counties. Gov. Mary Fallin asked the people of Oklahoma for patience and promised: “We will bring every single resource out that we can.”

Relief efforts sprang up. The Red Cross said it was opening a shelter, and the University of Oklahoma opened some of its housing for displaced families.

In addition to Plaza Towers, Briarwood Elementary School was heavily damaged, KFOR reported.

Grasping for comparisons, some people said it looked like Joplin, the Missouri town virtually wiped off the map two years ago when a tornado — this one an EF5 — blew through and killed 158 people.

Joplin city officials said Monday they were sending a team of 10 officers and three firefighters to Moore to help. “Giving back in whatever way we can,” the mayor said on Twitter.

For those living in Oklahoma, the ferocity was reminiscent of May 3, 1999, when a tornado registered wind of more than 300 mph, left 46 dead and damaged or destroyed more than 8,000 homes.

The tornado Monday also came one day after another cluster of storms in Oklahoma that killed two elderly men in the town of Shawnee. Tens of millions of people from Texas to the Great Lakes — an area covering 55 million people — had been warned to brace for the severe weather.

The Sunday storms destroyed mobile homes, flipped trucks and sent people across 100 miles running for cover. In Kansas, a weather forecaster was forced off the air as a tornado bore down on his station.

Watch live video of storms from KFOR TV

NBC News' Alastair Jamieson, Jeff Black and Tracy Connor contributed to this report.

Related:

• Children found drowned in tornado-flattened school
• Video: Timelapse – nightmare in the suburbs
• Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage Plains
• 'Oh my God!': KFC cook records dramatic footage of monster tornado
• What you're seeing: Videos, images from ground
• Six of the worst twisters in U.S. history
• Curse or coincidence? Scientists study Tornado Alley’s past, future
• How to help tornado victims

This story was originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 9:30 PM EDT

The Oklahoman, NewsOk.com

A teacher hugs a child at Briarwood Elementary school after a tornado destroyed the school in south Oklahoma City, Monday, May 20, 2013.

By Suzanne Choney, Contributing Writer, NBC News

The loss of life and stunning devastation in Oklahoma City suburbs after a monster tornado ripped through the area are heart-wrenching. "The streets are just gone. The signs are just gone," said Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, after she toured the area by helicopter Tuesday. And many, many relief organizations are getting the message out on how to help.

American Red Cross
The Red Cross has set up shelters in various communities. You can donate to the Red Cross Disaster Relief fund here, and the organization also suggests giving blood at your local hospital or blood bank. Fundraising efforts were buoyed Tuesday by a $1 million pledge from Kevin Durant, of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team, via his family foundation.

If you're searching for a missing relative, check Red Cross Safe & Well's site. And please register if you're within the disaster region. The site is designed to make communication easier after a tragedy like this. 

If you want to send a $10 donation to the Disaster Relief fund via text message, you can do so by texting the word REDCROSS to 90999. As in the case with other donations via mobile, the donation will show up on your wireless bill, or be deducted from your balance if you have a prepaid phone. You need to be 18 or older, or have parental permission, to donate this way. (If you change your mind, text the word STOP to 90999.)

The Red Cross also accepts frequent flier miles as donations. Delta, United Airlines and US Airways partner with the Red Cross throughout the year, which uses miles to help get volunteers and staff to key locations during disasters. (Note: The donation is not tax-deductible as the IRS considers it a gift.) For Delta, email: delta.bids@delta-air.com with your SkyMiles number, the number of miles you want to donate, and specify the Red Cross as the charity. You can donate miles online at United Airlines Donate Your Miles and US Airways Dividend Miles.

Phone: 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767); for Spanish speakers, 1-800-257-7575; for TDD, 1-800-220-4095.

OK Strong Disaster Relief Fund
The state of Oklahoma, coordinating with the United Way of Central Oklahoma, on Tuesday established the OK Strong Disaster Relief Fund to help "with the long-term medical, emotional and educational needs of victims of the May 20 tornado in Moore and the May 19 tornado near Shawnee."

Donations can be made online at UnitedWayOKC.org.

Phone: 1-405-236-8441.

Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma
The Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, working with the Oklahoma Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, is seeking monetary donations. To donate, visit the regional food bank's website, or give $10 by texting the word FOOD to 32333.

Phone: 1-405-972-1111

Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief
This organization says donations will "go straight to help those in need providing tree removal services, laundry services and meals to victims of disasters." 

It is requesting monetary donations (It says clothing is NOT needed). For more information, and to donate, visit Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief's website.

You can send checks to: BGCO, Attn: Disaster Relief, 3800 N. May Ave., Oklahoma City, OK., 73112.

Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is organizing disaster response units to serve hard-hit areas in central Oklahoma, including Moore, where it is sending mobile kitchens that can serve meals to 2,500 people a day, and to South Oklahoma City.

In Little Axe, Okla., the organization said, the army's Central Oklahoma Area Command Disaster Service Unit was busy feeding breakfast, lunch and dinner to people, "even as one of our Salvation Army family member's home was destroyed."

Supporters can donate online via the organization's website, SalvationArmyUSA.org. You can also text the word STORM to 80888 to make a $10 donation via cellphone.

If you want to send a check, the Salvation Army asks that you put the words "Oklahoma Tornado Relief" on the check, and mail it to: The Salvation Army, P.O. Box 12600, Oklahoma City, OK., 73157.

Phone:  1-800-SAL-ARMY (1-800-725-2769).

Related: Consumers warned about fake Oklahoma charities

Central Oklahoma Humane Society
The Central Oklahoma Humane Society is in need of towels, paper towels, bleach, gloves and crates to help with lost and injured animals. "Currently our greatest need is financial donations to help us treat and house lost and injured animals at our facilities," the society says on its site. Donations can be made online here and should be designated for the "OK Humane Disaster Relief Fund."

Phone:  1-405-607-8991

Feed the Children
Feed the Children has set up five locations in Oklahoma City to accept donations to help victims of the Moore tornado. The organization is accepting items including diapers, canned goods, non-perishable food, snack items, water and sports drinks. The organization is also supporting mobile canteens in partnership with the Salvation Army and the Red Cross.

You can donate online, or make a $10 donation by texting the word DISASTER to 80888.

Phone:  1-800-627-4556

United Way of Central Oklahoma
A disaster relief fund is being activated as of May 21 so that individuals can specifically donate to tornado relief-and-recovery efforts, the organization says on its site.

"Financial contributions are the best way to help unless otherwise requested." Donations can be made online at

United Way of Central Oklahoma’s Disaster Relief Fund is open.  Donations may be made online here. Checks, with a notation of "May Tornado Relief" can also be sent to the United Way of Central Oklahoma, P.O. Box 837, Oklahoma City, OK , 73101.

Feeding America
Through its network of more than 200 food banks, Feeding America, whose mission is to "feed America's hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks," says it will deliver truckloads of food, water and supplies to communities in need, in Oklahoma, and will also "set up additional emergency food and supply distribution sites as they are needed." You can donate online here.

Phone: 1-800-910-5524.

Operation USA
The international relief group, based in Los Angeles, says it is "readying essential material aid — emergency, shelter and cleaning supplies" to help Oklahoma's community health organizations and schools recover.

You can donate online here. You can also give a $10 donation by texting the word AID to 50555. Checks should be sent to: Operation USA, 7421 Beverly Blvd., PH, Los Angeles, CA 90036

Phone: 1-800-678-7255.

Convoy of Hope
The Missouri-based nonprofit organization has done work in other disasters, including the Haiti earthquake, with a mission of getting food and water to those after disaster strikes. Now it's doing the same for Moore, Okla. You can donate online here. Convoy of Hope is also going the crowd-sourced route, using HopeMob, a site similar to Kickstarter but for raising money to help disaster victims and others in need, which charges no fees to the organizations that use it. Convoy of Hope's goal on the site is to raise $15,000 in seven days to help Moore.

"Why 7 days? In these first 7 days the town of Moore, OK will be consumed with clearing out destruction and accessing their needs," HopeMob says on its site. "Once those needs are known we want to be able to give them the funds to help them rebuild in the long term."

Phone: 1-800-988-0664

Direct Relief
The Santa Barbara, Calif.-based, non-profit organization provides medical assistance and personal hygiene items to those hurt in disasters, as well as in other circumstances.

"So far we have heard from health center partners responding in Oklahoma and are preparing an emergency shipment to help support the efforts there.  Direct Relief has been receiving requests for emergency supplies, personal care and protection items — including hygiene supplies, infection control products, gloves, soap, shampoo, deodorant, sanitary napkins, diapers, wipes and formula," said Kerri Murray, Direct Relief vice president, in an email.

To donate, visit DirectRelief.org.

Phone: 1-800-676-1638

AmeriCares
The Emergency Response team for AmeriCares is in Oklahoma, "coordinating deliveries of emergency aid and assessing the needs of survivors and health care organizations in the disaster area."

Since 1982, the Connecticut-based nonprofit has delivered medicine, medical supplies and aid to those in need around the world and across the United States.

You can donate online here. You can also give a $10 donation by texting the word LIVE to 25383. Checks or money orders can be mailed to: AmeriCares, 88 Hamilton Ave., Stamford, CT 06902.

Phone:  1-800-486-HELP (1-800-486-4357)

Operation Blessing International
Humanitarian organization Operation Blessing International, which last week coordinated more than 500 volunteers in Granbury, Texas, after that area was hit by a tornado, is working with The Home Depot and dispatching a construction unit, mobile command center, trucks with tools and supplies and a team of construction foremen to Moore.

Late Monday, Operation Blessing International also "loaded and deployed two tractor-trailer truckloads of food and emergency relief supplies from its warehouse in Dallas, Texas, in partnership with the humanitarian organization, Mercury One," said a Operation Blessing spokeswoman.

The Virginia Beach-based group's online link for donations is here.

Phone:  1-800-730-2537

Samaritan's Purse
The international Christian relief organization focuses on cleaning and repairing damaged homes and sent two disaster relief units from North Wilkesboro, N.C. to Oklahoma Tuesday. "The tractor-trailers are stocked with heavy-duty plastic, chainsaws, generators, and other tools and equipment. The units also will serve as command centers for the response," Samaritan's Purse says on its website.

You can donate online here. You can also give a $10 donation by texting the word SP to 80888.

Phone:  1-800-528-1980

Save the Children
Save the Children responds to disasters around the world, and has created an "Oklahoma Tornadoes Children in Emergency Fund" for online donations. The organization provides food and medical care to children whose families have been displaced from their homes. You can give a $10 donation by texting the word TWISTER to 20222.

Phone:  1-800-728-3843

United Methodist Committee on Relief
The committee works with local United Methodist churches and trained disaster response workers to help with cleanup and rebuilding, pastoral counseling and support for children and youth who have been through trauma.
 
You can donate online here. You can also give a $10 donation by texting the word RESPONSE to 80888.

Phone: 1-800-554-8583

LifeChurch.tv
Life Church.tv, which describes itself as "Oklahoma's largest evangelical church," says its Oklahoma City metro locations will accept donations of items over the next week, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., and distribute them to tornado victims. Among the items needed: Toiletries, diapers, wipes, formula, baby bottles, new clothing, new shoes, and bags, backpacks or plastic tubs for carrying items.

You can also donate money online by visiting LifeChurch.tv, or by texting the word RELIEF to 86613, and selecting an amount you would like to donate.

Phone:  1-405-216-7054

Jewish Federations of North America
The Jewish Federations of North America is working with the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma, which is coordinating efforts with a local food bank, Habitat for Humanity and the Red Cross. The Jewish Federations of North America has established an Oklahoma City Tornado Relief fund. Donors can contribute online here.

Checks can also be sent to the JFNA national mailbox at: The Jewish Federations of North America, Wall Street Station, P.O. Box 148, New York, NY, 10268. Please indicate "JFNA Oklahoma City Tornado Relief Fund" on all checks or in the designation box online.

Oklahoma Tornado Relief 2013
The Oklahoma Tornado Relief 2013 fundraising effort is being done through a crowd-sourced effort using Fundly, a website for fundraising, akin to HopeMob, mentioned above. On the site, you'll find various fundraising causes to help tornado victims, and can choose which you'd like to support.

DonorsChoose.org
DonorsChoose.org is creating a special online fund to collect donations for the teachers and schools of Moore, Okla., to help respond and rebuild. Donors Choose will work with the teachers of Moore to assess what they need for their classrooms and allow them to identify the real-time solutions and supplies their community and their students need: everything from clothing for their students to first-aid kits. 

To donate, visit www.donorschoose.org

And a note of caution ...

Emotions are running high, understandably, in light of the awful news from Oklahoma. Many of us want to help in some way. But this vulnerable time is also rife with and ripe for scammers who want to prey on your emotions and wallet. They may seek you out via email, knock on your door, or even try to get you to give money via Facebook. 

The Federal Trade Commission has guidelines about charity donations, including these tips:

• Donate to charities you know and trust. Be alert for charities that seem to have sprung up overnight in connection with current events, like the tornadoes.
• Ask if a caller is a paid fundraiser, who they work for, and what percentage of your donation goes to the charity and to the fundraiser. If you don’t get a clear answer — or if you don’t like the answer you get — consider donating to a different organization.
• Don’t give out personal or financial information — including your credit card or bank account number — unless you know the charity is reputable.
• Never send cash: you can’t be sure the organization will receive your donation, and you won’t have a record for tax purposes.
• Check out the charity with the Better Business Bureau’s (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator, Charity Watch, or GuideStar.
• Find out if the charity or fundraiser must be registered in your state by contacting the National Association of State Charity Officials.

Ben Popken and Devin Coldewey also contributed to this report.

This story was updated May 22.

Related:

• Oklahoma tornado: How to find people, pets 
• Monster tornado deals death, destruction in Oklahoma
• Children found drowned in tornado-flattened school
• Video: Timelapse – nightmare in the suburbs
• Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage Plains
• 'Oh my God!': KFC cook records dramatic footage of monster tornado
• What you're seeing: Videos, images from ground
• Six of the worst twisters in U.S. history
• Curse or coincidence? Scientists study Tornado Alley’s past, future  

Sue Ogrocki / AP

A child is pulled from the rubble of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., and passed along to rescuers after Monday's tornado.

Seven children were found drowned at a tornado-flattened elementary school where rescuers were searching through the night for survivors as parents kept a heart-breaking vigil, officials said.

The students killed at Plaza Towers Elementary School were among at least 24 lives claimed by the monster twister that laid to Moore, Okla.

Several children and staffers were pulled alive from the ruins of Plaza Towers in Moore after the building took a direct hit Monday afternoon.

A little girl was lifted out by rescuers, while a small boy was carried to a triage area by a woman whose face was streaked with dirt and etched with worry.

Sue Ogrocki / AP

A woman carries an injured child to a triage center near the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla.,

In another image captured by an Associated Press photographer, a crowd of firefighters worked to remove a woman — her hair and clothes covered in dust and bits of debris — from the pile.

Those hopeful scenes were soon followed by devastating news as the Oklahoma City Medical Examiner's Office confirmed seven students were found dead in a pool of water.

It was unclear if any other children were killed or trapped alive.

Hysterical parents who had converged on the sprawling pile of broken concrete and twisted metal were later taken to a church to await word on the fate of their youngsters.

“Our hearts are just broken for the parents,” Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said at the briefing.

“Our prayers are with you. We are working as quickly as we can to get through the debris and answer some questions about where loved ones are.”

The funnel cloud slammed two schools — Plaza Towers and Briarwood Elementary. There were no reports of casualties from Briarwood, although the building was heavily damaged.

At Plaza Towers, the fourth, fifth and sixth grades were evacuated to a church about a quarter-mile away from the 440-student school before the tornado touched down.

Students in kindergarten through third grade sheltered in place, according to NBC station KFOR. Some of those students had been in a hallway when the twister struck, others in bathrooms.

BING / Microsoft Corp., Steve Gooch / AP

Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., before and after Monday's tornado hit.

"I had to hold on to the wall to keep myself safe because I didn't want to fly away in the tornado," one girl told the station.

James Rushing, who lives across the street, ran to the school to take shelter, thinking the building would be safer than his own home.

"About two minutes after I got there, the school started coming apart," he told The Associated Press.

The twister — deemed at least an EF4, the second-highest strength, by the National Weather Service — tore the roof off the building and knocked down its walls.

A truck that was tossed through the air landed in the spot where the school's main office would have been, KFOR reported. Books were scattered across pancaked slabs of concrete.

A crying man described to a reporter how he and others pulled a car off a teacher in the front of the building and found three children she had shielded with her body.

"Good job, teach," the man said, his voice choked with emotion.

A sixth-grade teacher told KFOR she laid on top of several children in a restroom to protect them from winds that may have topped 200 mph, and all survived.

Officials said search and rescue efforts would continue through the night.

Related:

• Monster tornado deals death, destruction in Oklahoma
• Video: Timelapse – nightmare in the suburbs
• Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage Plains
• 'Oh my God!': KFC cook records dramatic footage of monster tornado
• What you're seeing: Videos, images from ground
• Six of the worst twisters in U.S. history
• Curse or coincidence? Scientists study Tornado Alley’s past, future
• How to help tornado victims

This story was originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 7:02 PM EDT

A television station in Kansas was forced to evacuate during a live broadcast on Sunday afternoon after a massive tornado — one of three that ripped through the Plains States over the weekend — touched down in downtown Wichita.

Dramatic video footage shows J.D. Rudd, a meteorologist for NBC affiliate KSN, rushing out of the camera frame as station staffers frantically flee the set shortly after 4:15 p.m., following nearly two hours of continuous live coverage of the wrathful storm.

“It appears that it is time for all of us to get to shelter,” a man can be heard saying off-camera. “Get to shelter right now! Everybody ... let’s go!”

Station employees scattered and bolted to the basement as warning sirens blared and the cyclone whipped across downtown Wichita, according to KSN producer Kathy Ivy.

“Downtown Wichita was in the target zone,” Ivy said. “We were in the target zone.”

Fortunately, the storm lifted the second it arrived at the KSN studio’s doors, leaving the facility largely unharmed.

Thousands of homes and businesses lost power during the brunt of the tornado’s tear through town, but it missed the most populated areas of the city.

There were no reports of fatalities or injuries in Kansas on Monday morning. Tornadoes killed two people and injured 21 in Oklahoma on Sunday.

Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage Plains

Bill Waugh / Reuters

Leah Hill, of Shawnee, Okla., is hugged by a friend as they look through Hill's scattered belongings from her home which was destroyed by a tornado, west of Shawnee, on May 19.

Launch slideshow

A vast area of the central U.S. was warned to prepare for storms on Monday, after tornadoes killed one and injured 21 in Oklahoma and also hit Iowa and Kansas.

“After over 300 reports of severe weather on Sunday, another round of dangerous severe weather is expected Monday with the greatest threat once again in the southern Plains targeting Oklahoma and parts of Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas,” the National Weather Service said. “However, severe weather is possible much further north towards Chicago and Madison as well."

The weather service issued maps showing the risk of severe storms and tornadoes.

A trailer park near Oklahoma City was turned into “splinters and rubble,” weather.com reported, as multiple twisters sent people running for cover along a 100-mile corridor.

James Hoke, who lives with his wife and two children in the Steelman Estates Mobile Home Park in Shawnee, Okla., told the Associated Press that they went into their storm cellar as the storm approached. When they came out, their mobile home had vanished.  "It took a dead hit," Hoke said.

Shalyn Phillips / TVNweather.com

A tornado is captured on camera near Viola, Kansas, on Sunday.

Read more from weather.com

"You can see where there's absolutely nothing, then there are places where you have mobile home frames on top of each other, debris piled up," Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth told the AP. "It looks like there's been heavy equipment in there on a demolition tour.

"It's pretty bad. It's pretty much wiped out," he added.

Elsewhere In Oklahoma, tornadoes were also reported at Edmond, Arcadia and near Wellston to the north and northeast of Oklahoma City, weather.com said.

Don Lynch, of Pottawaomie County Sheriff’s Office, said a 79-year-old man had been killed.

Twenty-one people across the state were injured, according to Keli Cain, an Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman.

The Norman, Oklahoma, office posted a Twitter alert warning of a tornado about to strike Pink, a town not far from Shawnee, at around 6:15 p.m. local time (7:15 p.m. ET).

"Large tornado west of Pink!" the post read. "Take cover RIGHT NOW in Pink! DO NOT WAIT!"

"You could be killed if not underground or in a tornado shelter," it added. "Complete destruction of neighborhoods, businesses and vehicles will occur. Flying debris will be deadly to people and animals."

Randy Grau told weather.com of the moment he realized it was time to take cover in his Edmond home. He said he looked out a window as the weather worsened and believed he saw a flock of birds heading down the street.

"Then I realized it was swirling debris. That's when we shut the door of the safe room," said Grau, adding that he, his wife and two children remained in the room for 10 minutes.

The storm prompted an unusually blunt warning from the central region of the National Weather Service, which covers 14 states.

Oklahoma’s Governor Mary Fallin on Sunday declared a State of Emergency for 16 Oklahoma counties because of tornadoes, severe storms, straight-line winds and flooding.

"Our hearts and prayers are with those Oklahomans who have been affected by today's severe weather," Fallin said in a statement.

Carla Tollett, an information officer for St. Anthony Shawnee Hospital, said it was treating one patient who was in a critical condition and had also seen 10 other less seriously injured people.

Various power companies reported more than 57,000 outages related to the storms.

In Wichita, Kansas, a tornado touched down near Mid-Continent Airport shortly before 4 p.m., weather.com reported. Thousands of homes and businesses lost power, but the twister missed the most populated areas of the city.

Sedgwick County Emergency Management Director Randy Duncan told weather.com there were no reports of fatalities or injuries in Kansas.

In Iowa, two tornadoes were reported touching down on Sunday night -- one near Huxley, about 20 miles north of Des Moines, and one in Grundy County, northeast of Des Moines.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.