$2 billion. about 4,000 claims so far have been filed. seven children died when the plaza towers elementary school took a direct hit from the tornado. our chief national correspondent john king got a look at what s left of that school. john, i know it was very painful for you, for our crews, everybody going anywhere near that school to see what you had to see. as a journalist, as a parent, as a human being, you show up at this site, wolf, and you see what s left of the school. then you have the structure described for you. it was shaped like a u and essentially part of the cross bars are still there. the two legs are gone. you see the swath of destruction in the neighborhood and at the school. you take a walk through and you re humbled and saddened. seven of the ten children who died here prishd right at that school. when you walk through and viewers get a look of the devastation of the site it is a miracle that so many more children and the teachers
almost like a junk yard. cars, trucks, suvs sucked up and spit out into twisted metal. you see glass, wood, a random sink here. the smell of gasoline is so potent, you wonder how safe we really are. and the randomness of what we re finding, a bowling ball. a bowling alley was right over there but not anymore. a bill board right over there. the wind ripped off the advertisement and then blew the metal back into a twisted mess there. but really whether you were out shopping, whether you were in the house, whether you were in your business or whether you were in a school, these residents really have been terrorized. they were like everybody in the bathroom. they kept yelling. when he said everything run to the bathroom, the roof came off and the side of the walls, they came off, too.
Transcripts for CNN Erin Burnett OutFront 20130522 23:12:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
charles gaffert shot that video and tells the story behind it later in the program. you ll meet him. first one of the most incredible stories to emerge from this disaster begins outside briarwood elementary school. shortly after the storm as frantic parents searched for their kids. we want you to watch this to understand what it was like for parents, what they were going through yesterday in that school parking lot. justin? all fifth graders right here! watch out for the wires! fifth graders! hey, where is she?
any new school built to have safe rooms for students. but that could change for tornado areas when new building codes are adopted in the coming years. and in joplin the site of the storm two years ago. the paper says 1,000 safe rooms were bought in the first year after the storm. the city of moore, oklahoma, has been trying to get federal money to subsidize residents who want to buy safe rooms. in february, the city expressed frustration saying, we found the fema requirements and their interpretations seem to be a constantly moving target. we asked the head of fema why the city didn t get any money? if you don t have disasters, you didn t have additional money for mitigation for safe rooms. without disasters there is not a set funding source for safe rooms. reporter: that on a day we learned the rooms can keep us safe even though we emerge to learn that all around us has been destroyed. the threat of severe weather hangs over parts of at least six