they re not. 460-something students. unfortunately, we did lose seven. but by looking at the damage it s a miracle that we didn t lose a lot more. and none of this has been touched. this is what it looked like. there hasn t been tractors moving anything. this is how it landed. people have been through, there s nobody left if. this has been searched. we had to go through all of this. this goes for 15 miles the other way, just like this. 15 miles? just like this. 15 miles just like this? 15 miles, yes. reporter: the damage there just so staggering. of course, the devastation at plaza towers elementary school weighing so heavily on everyone, the loss of seven young lives weighing on everyone here. it is weighing particularly heavy on one tornado survivor who rushed to the plaza towers elementary school with the hopes of saving some young children. pamela brown is here with that part of the story. we ve talked to so many people who right after the tornado, they wanted to help
i wanted to get your name. i couldn t remember yours and i looked at the paper. i m so happy you re okay. i m happy to see you. i m so happy, thank you so much. reporter: there are so many acts of hee roarism ever have where you look, so many people coming together to help the rebuilding effort. you see armies of people raking laups and picking up rubble. it is such an inspiring sight to see amidst the tragedy here. this, of course, where seven children, they were killed in the plaza towers elementary school when that tornado struck. really the school took a direct hit. cnn s john king toured the devastation with moore police sergeant jeremy lewis. in terms of when people first responded here, i mean, where did everybody go? we basically surrounded the school and started running into different areas. some of this has been cleaned out due to the search and rescue efforts. literally just climbing over debris. people were yelling for help.
that we saw last week. we are talking about a slight chance for tornado in that area as well. we are watching though, we re seeing where some cells are popping up. lightning in the area in oklahoma where we re trying to do that recovery. it looks like that will be the case straight through the weekend. we re going to talk about nice moderate temperatures, 70s and 80s but as long as we see the thunderstorms developing, we re going to be talking about chances for some heavier showers, even some winds, 15, 30 miles per hour. that could hinder some of the recovery efforts out there. thanks for that forecast. coming up, moore, oklahoma didn t know how many heroes there were. we re going to meet a doctor from the moore medical center who went above and beyond. always infinity. [ marcy ] it s like memory foam. [ female announcer ] the only pad made from a revolutionary material. [ erina ] it totally fits to your body. [ female announcer ] it s incredible protection, you ll barely feel it.
homes, but officials here are looking at what happened in this case and they say it s worth it. even the governor is proposing an account, you know, for donations to come in to build safe rooms for schools and for private homes. you even see a state representative looking at possibilities of bond measures to create the money to build these safe rooms and underground shelters at schools, looking at what happened, john, they re saying it s worth it. really gives you a sense looking at all this destruction about how these rooms, how these safe rooms and shelters can save lives. thanks for being with us. of course, there were the homes and n. moore that were devastate and destroyed but there were also a lot of businesses in this town that suffered a great deal of damage. jay tapper visited a prominent strip mall to see just how bad things got there. reporter: one look at the camden village strip mall and you can see not only the tornado s fury but also its
four children buried under the massive debris of the collapsed school. suffocated by its shear weight. they probably would have made fit they weren t pinned. reporter: how were they pinned? pinned by different debris. desks. two by fours. pieces of metal. reporter: the students were not found in a basement as officials initially believed. do you think had there been an underground shelter these lives could have been saved? oh, yeah, most definitely. underground shelters are some of the best things to have in a tornado. reporter: still, there are not enough of them. even in tornado-stricken oklahoma. schools aren t required to have underground shelters. the main reasons, the high cost of retrofitting the schools and the porous soil. it s about the money. and the statistics. an f-5 tornado is very rare, 1% to 2% of the tornados. they don t happen very often, same reason they don t have safe rooms for earth quabs.