Page 21 - Storm Cellar News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Gives us some hope and encouragement during a time of such great tragedy in this community. >> so many people are banding together in this community. >> that's what oklahoma's about. we have great people and i know we're going to make it through this even stronger. we persevere, we're resilient, we believe in helping our neighbors and as you heard the story of people coming out of the community itself and just walking up and going to the school, going door to door. even though they may have just lost everything, they were out helping their fellow man. >> in this area that has experienced storm...

Tornadoes because there's a big flooding problem in this state. a lot of families think it's very unlikely we're going to get hit by a tornado but very likely we will get flooding. we don't want a flooded basement and we don't have a basement. that's the case here. a lot of people don't have basements. they don't have these shelters. that's why there are so many people in danger if a tornado does indeed strike their home. >> all right. gary, appreciate that look. thanks. charles gafford was one of the lucky ones to reach a storm shelter in time. when the twister hit he grabbed his camera and...

Cellar, everything was in order, i was home luckily in the middle of a workday. so it was the best case scenario for what actually happened. >> what happened was your house was completely destroyed. but when you were in the storm cellar, what did you hear? >> well, you always hear what sounds like a train coming or jet. it became an all-encompassing sound. the pressure was so great, it hard to identify what the sound was. i can tell you when it left, it became extremely calm and extremely quiet very, very quickly. >> so you heard that and it sounded like a locomotive but you didn't expect to s...

It's one of the most heartbreaking images of this tragedy. fields of rubble where just yesterday, block after block of houses stood. look around here, it's as far as the eye can see, just houses have been leveled. neighborhoods wiped out by this tornado. the homes were no match for winds that topped out around 200 miles per hour. for many to ride out the twister reaching a storm shelter often meant the difference between life and death. we just spoke to the mayor of moore and the governor of oklahoma about shelters and why they aren't more widespread. gary tuchman is also here with us in moore...

We were getting covered with debris. >> bill: how long were you in the shelter? >> i would probably say about ten minutes. >> bill: so then you come up, your house is pretty much destroyed. you look across the street and the school is destroyed and there are kids in trouble over there. tell us about that. >> well, they are screaming and yelling and just hysteria. people are rushing towards the school. i took my children down in the storm cellar with another sixth grade girl and she watched over them and ran over there to see if i could be help. teachers were bleeding and swept off their seats....