Obama visits Oklahoma to comfort tornado victims, thank rescuers

Sunday, May 26, 2013: President Obama with Plaza Towers Elementary School principal Amy Simpson amid tornado devastation in Moore, Okla. (AP)

President Obama toured tornado-stricken Oklahoma on Sunday, thanking rescuers and comforting survivors amid a backdrop of buildings reduced to splinters and other devastation.

“Obviously, a picture is worth a thousand words, and what we’re seeing here I think gives you some sense of what the people … of Oklahoma have been dealing with over these last several days,” the president said while visiting the city of Moore, the Oklahoma City suburb hit hardest by the storm Monday afternoon.

"You've got folks behind you,” Obama told survivors. “"Our hearts go out to you.”

The monstrous EF5 tornado killed 24 people, including 10 children, and destroyed 1,200 homes.

Standing with Gov. Mary Fallin and other state and federal officials, Obama urged Americans to help, asking them specifically to donate money to the Red Cross.

Shortly after his arrival on a partly cloudy day, Obama road in his motorcade past grassy fields strewn with scattered debris, witnessing devastation so awesome that it appeared as if garbage had literally rained from the sky.

His first stop was the demolished site of the Plaza Towers Elementary School, where seven students were killed when the tornado turned the one-story building into a heap of bricks, broken concrete and twisted metal.

Obama walked along Eagle Drive, with the demolished school on his left and on his right, homes reduced as far as the eye could see to piles of rubble. Vehicles were turned upside down and toys like doll carriages and children's books were strewn with furniture and ripped out wall insulation.

"I know this is tough," he told one school official.

The president met the Lewis family, who lost their home behind the school, telling them the important thing is they survived and could replace their things.

"What a mess," he told their son Zack, a third-grader at the shattered school. Zack's father, Scott, ran into the school just before the storm hit and ran with his terrified son back to their home's storm shelter.

"You've got some story to tell," Obama told the boy. "This is something you'll remember all your life."

The next stop was Moore Fire Department Station No. 1, which served as a command center throughout the disaster, first for search and rescue and now for survivor services. Inside the station, the president met with other first-responders and with families whose children were killed inside the elementary school.

Obama flew from Washington into Tinker Air Force Base and shook hands with personnel whose homes off base were lost or damaged.

Fallin, the first to greet the president as he got off the plane, said she appreciates the visit, but the state also needs quick action from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help the ravaged town of 41,000 people.

The Republican governor said so far, the agency has done a great job of speeding relief and cash assistance to affected families, but she's concerned about the long run.

"There's going to come a time when there's going to be a tremendous amount of need once we begin the debris clearing, which we already have, but really get it cleared off to where we need to start rebuilding these homes, rebuilding these businesses," she said on CBS' "Face the Nation." `'And we know at different times in the past, money hasn't come always as quickly as it should."

Obama offered prayers for residents from the White House in recent days and has promised to support the rebuilding for as long as it takes.

"They have suffered mightily this week," Obama said Wednesday. "And while the road ahead will be long, their country will be with them every single step of the way."

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, speaking to reporters accompanying the presidential party on Air Force One, said Obama wanted to make the trip to offer condolences and reiterate his and the nation's commitment to rebuild.

Earnest touted the federal contributions so far, including Obama's signing of a disaster declaration within hours of the storm to speed aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Earnest said that 450 FEMA personnel were working on the ground in Oklahoma and have delivered 43,000 meals, 150,000 liters of water and thousands of cots, blankets and tarps. He said 4,200 people have applied for disaster assistance, and $3.4 million in payments have been approved.

Fallin said the money is particularly vital for the victims. "A lot of people lose their checkbooks, they lose their credit cards, they lose their driver's license, their birth certificates, their insurance papers, they lose everything, and they have no cash. And some of the banks were even hit, the ATM machines, so people need cash to get immediate needs," she said on CBS.

Earnest also said that forecasters from the National Weather Service had worked ahead of the storm to prepare communities that it threatened. He said they issued a warning 36 minutes before the tornado entered Moore, earlier than the 12-minute average warning.

Before leaving, at the air base, the president greeted 10 tornado forecasters from the NOAA Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

After Obama departed, Fallin hosted an interdenominational religious service that drew 2,000 people.

"God will give us the ability to mend our broken hearts," Fallin said at the end of the 80-minute service. "We may be knocked down, but we will rise up again, and for that we thank God."

Earnest also said that Sunday wasn't a day for a partisan political debate, adding that "it is evident to any impartial observer here what an important role the federal government can play in providing assistance to our people at their time of urgent need."

Among the 10 children killed were two sisters pulled by the strong winds out of their mother's grasp, an infant who died along with his mother trying to ride out the storm in a convenience store and seven students at Plaza Towers. Many students were pulled from the rubble after the school was destroyed.

Fallin noted that some 100 other schools in Oklahoma have safe rooms for children to seek shelter in tornados.

"Schools that have been lost in the past, many of them have rebuilt rooms of some sort as a safe room in their school, and we're certainly going to encourage that," she said.

"Any death is very unfortunate, but it's truly incredible that we had only 24 deaths at this site, because if you look at all the debris field and how wide it is, I don't know how anybody survived this tornado," she said on CBS.

The White House said that FEMA has already provided $57 million in rebates and incentives to help build about 12,000 storm shelters in Oklahoma.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.