Janice Brim heeded her husband's advice and found a safe place to protect her students at Plaza Towers Elementary during the Oklahoma tornado. Mark Brim, who works in construction, had warned that a hallway would not be adequate.

Immediately after the storm hit, Mark raced to his wife's school. When he saw the destruction, he feared the worst. He remembers thinking, "There's no way that anybody could walk away from this."

Tragically, there were fatalities in the school, but Janice and the five children who were with her survived. "I told the kids 'We may get rained on if it lifts the roof off. We are hanging tight. We're going to stay strong right here,'" she tells Anderson Cooper.  The couple believes seeking shelter in the closet was a lifesaving decision.

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Janae Hornsby didn't survive the deadly tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma on Monday. Her family remembers her as a sweet, fun and unique child. Janae's father is praying it's a mistake; he says he hasn't yet accepted the painful reality that his daughter isn't coming back.

Anderson Cooper talks with teacher Waynel Mayes about what it was like in her classroom when the tornado ripped through Moore, Oklahoma on Monday. Plaza Towers Elementary School was destroyed as winds that peaked around 200 mph caused widespread damage in the town.

Mayes gave instruments to her students and told them to play loudly and sing "Jesus Loves Me" as a way to drown out the frightening sounds of the storm passing through. "I said, 'When you get scared, you can scream, but keep playing, keep playing, keep playing. And we did it," she says.

The school had practiced emergency safety procedures, and Mayes says it helped that the students listened to directions when the disaster hit. Residents pulled her and the children from the rubble into a chaotic scene as parents frantically searched for their loved ones.

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Residents begin to process the scope of the damage and loss in Oklahoma the day after the deadly tornado hit. Anderson Cooper reports.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis talk to Anderson Cooper about the tornado that killed seven children in Plaza Towers Elementary School on Monday.

The death toll continues to rise in Oklahoma after a powerful tornado wiped out homes, schools and other buildings. The preliminary rating of damage created by the 2-mile-wide twister is at least EF4, which indicates it had wind speeds between 166 and 200 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Anderson cooper looks at how the natural disaster and tragic aftermath unfolded.