The death toll in the monster Oklahoma Tornado has thankfully been revised down, as people who were missing and presumed dead have turned up alive.  State officials are saying 24 lives were lost, although they warn that number could get worse.  Insurance claims are expected to top $1 Billion.

Search and rescue operations in the town of Moore, OK are winding down, though police say they will triple-check every property affected by the tornado.

Nine children are counted among the dead, including seven from the Plaza Towers Elementary School, one of two schools that were directly in the twister’s path.  Plaza Towers did not have “safe rooms”, special concrete and steel structures that are designed to withstand a tornado even as the rest of the building surrounding it falls away.  More than a hundred other schools in Oklahoma have used grants from the Federal or State governments to build safe rooms, but Plaza Towers did not.  The kids and teachers cowered in the hallways as the storm knocked down walls and ripped the roof off.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has upgraded the tornado to EF-5, the most powerful type on the Enhanced Fujita scale.  Meteorologists say the twister's path was 17 miles long and 1.3 miles wide.

President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster in Oklahoma and ordered federal authorities to join the recovery.