2 Schools Decimated by Okla. Twister

Abc anchor david muir is tracking the desperate search David? Reporter: Robin, good morning and all I can say is this scene is simply stunning. As you know we landed in oklahoma overnight. Drove... See More

Abc anchor david muir is tracking the desperate search David? Reporter: Robin, good morning and all I can say is this scene is simply stunning. As you know we landed in oklahoma overnight. Drove across the state and the power suddenly stopped. We knew we had arrived. Nothing but darkness and the outline of homes destroyed and over my shoulder this is the picture repeated for miles upon miles, all that's left are piles of brick and wood. And just beyond those homes there, that elementary school where so many children were lost as we now learn they were huddled with their teachers inside their classrooms. Those wall beginning to collapse when the winds reached up to 200 miles per hour. Overnight the frantic search for survivors, the young ones at plaza towers elementary school, one of two schools decimated by that two-mile-wide twister. Took the gymnasium down. Tore through it like a truck run through the center of it. Reporter: The massive tornado touching down just as students were about to be released, their last week of school before summer vacation. Many of them hunkered down in closets and classrooms and bathrooms clinging to hope and to one another. Well, I was on the ground and I just -- my ears just went beep and I couldn't hear anything except cracking and kids screaming. Reporter: Both briarwood elementary and plaza towers elementary. And briarwood wiped to its foundation. Incredibly, every student was accounted for. We were told to get in our tornado precaution system but then they moved us to the boys and girls bathroom. Reporter: But the scene playing out at plaza towers is much more devastating. A sole blackboard sticking out from the rubble. Police say at least seven children have died there. At least two dozen more are missing. Feared trapped beneath the rubble. The scene over there at the school is just catastrophic. It's just -- I mean there's chaos. I've never seen anything like it before. Reporter: The immediate aftermath, the chaos and confusion. This teacher battered and bruised carrying a child from the rubble. Then the list, the names of the children who survived. We're going to read it. And perhaps the most nerve-racking thing a parent can endure racing to be reunited with a child you're not certain will be there. I'm just happy that I was able to find my son and my family is okay. Reporter: At this checkpoint we also found 8-year-old joziah parker escaping unharmed but could not find his parents. If my mom and dad are still alive they'll probably take us to a hotel because our house is gone. Reporter: But we know they did survive the storm. A glimmer of hope even as so much has been lost here in moore. An 8-year-old reunited with his parents and we need more of those stories. I can hear a helicopter hovering overhead. As we were here in the overnight hours it was hovering over that elementary school shining lights on the school because they needed them for the search efforts but they were also concerned about the noise from the helicopter that it might drown out any possible cries from the children still inside that school but we've learned this morning the search and rescue has now been turned to a recovery operation here just behind us, george. Thanks very much.