tonight we reunite the mom and the teacher. it is an amazing story of courage and strength. we ll also meet another teacher whose quick thinking enabled her to keep her students safe. she grabbed several students, rushed them into a closet at plaza towers elementary. we ll also speak with her husband who raced to the school realizing the school was in danger to try to help in the search and rescue efforts. we ve heard a lot about storm shelters and how they save lives. gary tuchman will take us inside one of them to see how they re built. he ll tell us why more people don t have them in this area. of course, all the latest on the ongoing search here. there is so much to cover. it begins at the top of the hour. really looking forward to seeing you in a few minutes. you know, when the tornado touched down in moore on monday, it caught a lot of people off guard. you know, a big part of the reason for that is there actually had been a rather big lull in severe storms and tornadoes so f
reporter: these are the frantic moments after the tornado struck brianwood elementary school in moore, oklahoma. chaos instantly wrapped in the comforting arms of parents and teachers. snapshots that captured the emotion, words can t fully do justice. this is where we find tammy and her second grade class. i can t even describe what was going through my head. i was numb. reporter: as the tornado sirens blaired and teachers moved students to safe positions, tammy stepped outside. reporter: this is what you saw just right before we went in. reporter: she snapped this picture of the twister barrelling at the classroom. she raced inside and courtroomed about 20 students in to a closet and bathroom. reporter: what do you tell a bunch of second grade little kids? at that moment? before i shut the doors, because the bathroom had doors, i said i love you. the boys looked at may little
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 first found out this is one of the most powerful tornado there is. that evidence came from briarwood and yet every child survived. reporter: you know, someone like tammy i think probably speaks for what many of the teachers must be feeling. you turn around and look at what s left behind and what you essentially have emerged out of and you walk away scratching your head. no real way to explain how
that image has given so many just a light and a ray of hope. thanks to jim and shanna and hezikiah. okay. thank you. we re learning that that tornado at one point was an ef-5. as we have been explaining, that s the highest classification that a tornado can receive. at the time when the ef-5 was struck, winds between 200 and 210 mirps. that s up to 50 miles per hour faster, nearly 50 miles faster than that they thought it might have been when it struck briarwood elementary school. that s where he was in school. this school is completely and utterly gone. he and every other child though managed to survive and ed lavandera is out front to talk about the heroes, teachers who put their lives on the line to save him and every one of the classmates.
cinder block fell on the back of my neck. reporter: the only section of the school somewhat intact is the bathroom and a couple of teachers tammy included decided to move the students in there at the last second and then everything erupted. the walls caving in. the car blown in to the side of the wall. with students on the other side, it could have been devastating. the teachers decided to move those students in to that area and that s what saved their lives. despite what you see here, everybody at the school survived the tornado strike. there were lots of tears but tammy says the students were brave. i mean, they were calm. reporter: really? surprisingly very calm. reporter: why do you think that is? i think they felt safe. we did our best to take care of them and make them feel loved and secure. reporter: as we talked, she found a muddy paper that brought tears to her eyes. was an end of year award?