Seven school children were among the dead in the Oklahoma City area after a mile-wide tornado with up to 200 mph winds destroyed blocks of homes, businesses and two elementary schools.

Rescuers were tearing through rubble at both the Plaza Towers Elementary School and the Briarwood Elementary School in nearby Moore, Okla., Parton said.

Television news accounts and the Associated Press reported several children had been pulled alive from the rubble of the Plaza Towers school.

“Our hearts are just broken for the parents” trying to find out the fate of their children who were at one of the two schools, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said during a news conference Monday night.

Students and faculty took shelter inside both school buildings when the tornado hit, and Parton said he’d been told that teachers shielded children with their bodies in both school buildings when the strong winds ripped the roofs away.

Youngsters from the Plaza Towers school told KFOR Channel 4 in Oklahoma that they were clinging to the walls of the school building as the tornado passed over them.

“It’s going to be an all-night process of digging through that school,” Jayme Shelton, public information officer for the city of Moore, said by telephone.

Shelton said he had no information regarding how many were supposed to have been inside the Plaza Towers building when the tornado hit.

Parton said what was making the rescue work tricky at the Briarwood school was that searchers were not sure how many people were supposed to have been inside. The police spokesman said he’d been told there were about 80 faculty and students who should have been inside the building when the tornado hit.

“The numbers at this point aren’t too trustworthy,” Parton said. “So much is going on, it’s hard to say what’s an absolute.”

He added, “There hasn’t been enough time since this occurred for the medical examiner to actually have received fatalities.”

The Briarwood school was among many other buildings destroyed when the storm barreled through, Parton said.

Telephone calls to both school buildings yielded only fast busy signals.

Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokesman Jerry Lojka said emergency management officials do not know how many students were in the two elementary schools.

“We don’t know how many were rescued or if they have been transported,” Lojka said. “Unfortunately, there’s so much unknown information at this point.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

For many, Monday’s tornado outbreaks brought forth a nightmarish form of déjà vu.

Seventy-four tornadoes touched down across Oklahoma and Kansas on May 3, 1999, in less than 21 hours, including the very area hit Monday in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City. When the winds died down, 46 died, 800 were hurt and property damage totaled $1.5 billion, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.

Devon Lucie, meteorologist with WJLA television in Arlington, Va., was a meteorology student at the University of Oklahoma when that 1999 storm hit. He was in a room with other students on the 12th floor of the meteorology building in Norman, just southeast of the tornado’s track.

“It’s one I’ll never forget,” he wrote in the station’s blog.

Reached by telephone, Lucie called Monday’s storm “uncanny.”

“Exactly what we’re watching now is exactly what happened then,” Lucie said. “I’m having a tough time grasping this because these same people are the ones who were affected.”

He remembered the water tower seen in Monday’s images being prominent in his memories from 1999, too. “For months, there was still just a path that was wiped away,” he said.

Lucie said he and other students had been tracking the storm from 10 o’clock that morning. “It was overcast. The temperatures just skyrocketed. The humidity was high,” he recalled.

Some students figured it was the chance of a lifetime to chase the storm, so they did. Lucie said he could not because he had to stay inside and study. For those students who did go out, it was probably the largest-magnitude tornado they’d ever chased, he said.

“I just pray for the best coming out of this,” Lucie said. “That area has gone through this before. This time around, people will be a little more prepared, and there should be more plans in place. If everybody makes it out of there alive, I will be surprised.”

Lucie added, “If there’s anyone who can make it through this, it’s the people of Oklahoma City.”

The fastest wind speed ever recorded – 318 mph – was generated by one of the Oklahoma City-area tornadoes on May 3, 1999, according to a USA TODAY story published then.

Before then, the fastest wind speed ever recorded was 286 mph logged on April 26, 1991, during a tornado in Red Rock, Okla.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

After weeks and weeks of buildup, people in the Washington area are beginning to spot cicadas – those gigantic flying bugs that make an appearance every several years. The brood on its way now appears once every 17 years.

One woman named Shawna of Fredericksburg, Va., snapped a few photos for WUSA9 in Washington, but she had to stop because the cicadas started to fly around and she had to run inside.

Carol McGuire of Nokesville, Va., snapped some pictures of some on a tree in her front yard for WUSA9. She said she “can’t wait for them to leave.”

The full parade of cicadas is expected to emerge from the ground in late May or early June and if their appearance is anything like their last one, they’ll wreak havoc, causing pedestrians to suddenly jump up and down screaming or even spurring minor fender benders when they fly into open car windows.

Jenny Marder of PBS Newshour writes of spotting a “nice crop” of the bugs in a nest of poison ivy at Bull Run Regional Park in Virginia.

“It took some scouring, but then there they were, with their veiny golden wings and bright beady red eyes, clinging to grass and leaves and tree bark,” Marder writes.

And as the East Coast dreads – um – anticipates the arrival of the bug-eyed insects, social media has buzzed with recipes for eating cicadas, including cicada tacos. Proponents hail the bugs as gluten-free and low-carb.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Cleveland Patrol Officer Patrol Officer Anthony Espada has recounted to a public information officer in the city’s Department of Public Safety what it was like to find Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight on May 6, more than 10 years after they’d gone missing.

“We pull up, we see a crowd, like on the porch,” Espada said. “We see this girl. She’s like raising her hand, holding a child.”

Espada’s partner was driving and as they pulled up as the woman — Amanda Berry, 27 — approached his partner, he said.

“He looked up at me and he’s like, ‘Is it her?’ Just the emotion from that point that he confirmed it was Amanda was overwhelming,” Espada said.

The officer and his partner asked Espada if anyone else was inside and she said yes, two more.

“We immediately started running towards the house,” Espada said. “As we were going up the steps, it was so quiet, like peaceful.”

Espada goes on to explain that he heard a scuffling inside and Michelle Knight, 27, popped into the doorway and paused for a second.

“Within moments, she came charging at me,” Espada said. “She jumped onto me. She’s like, ‘You saved us! You saved us!’ And I’m holding onto her so tight. And then, within a few seconds, I see another girl come out of the bedroom.”

Georgina “Gina” DeJesus, 23, was next, according to Espada’s account.

He continued, “I asked her, ‘What’s your name?’ She said, ‘My name is Georgina DeJesus.’ Very overwhelming. I mean, it took everything to hold myself together … It was like one bombshell after another. That’s when I broadcasted, ’2 Adam 23, we found them! We found them!’ “

Espada said everything just came together in the right place at the right time.

“I feel so happy for them,” he said. “It goes through my mind every day. I couldn’t imagine the past 10-12 years what they went through.”

Homeowner Ariel Castro is accused of kidnapping and rape in the case.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

EBay listings offering medals from the 2013 Boston Marathon have appalled runners who consider it insensitive to sell a memento of the tragedy.

Several ads have cropped up on the auction website listing medals from the April 15 race, many of them for hundreds of dollars and up to $1,000. None of several sellers contacted for this story responded to e-mails, but all of the ads claim either that the medal is authentic or that the seller ran the race and received his or her medal despite the explosions that killed three people and injured more than 260.

Two medals were still for sale Tuesday evening. Several other auctions had ended without a buyer. One seller said the proceeds would go to the American Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts.

One listing said, “I ran the race and this was handed to me at the finish.” Another said, “I trained hard, ran and received this medal. Selling to run again next year. This is for shops and collectors of memorabilia.”

One eBay user issued a fake listing with nothing for sale, using it to chastise the medal sales and suggesting the medals were not earned by the sellers.

“What an utter and complete shame that people would spend HUNDREDS, and even a THOUSAND dollars to own a medal that was NOT EARNED, but was stolen,” the fake listing said. “How despicable. How could any human see the carnage and choose to use that as the time to LOOT a merchandise stand? How could ANY OF YOU put the money in the pockets of those people and not send that money to the people that have lost one or both legs?”

Jon Vizena, a photographer and runner of ultra marathons (races longer than the 26.2-mile marathon distance) said anyone who would sell their Boston Marathon paraphernalia without donating the profits to charity is “a disgrace.”

Added Vizena, 31, of Boston, “Monetary gain from an act of terror is disrespect at the highest level, utterly disgusting.”

Some runners are skeptical that the sellers really ran the marathon.

“For me, as a marathon runner, that’s kind of like your prize for all the effort and training you’ve done, so I can’t imagine that anything sold on there would be from the actual runners that finished the race,” said marathoner Aaron Tani, 50, of Bend, Ore., creator of the 2,100-member Facebook Runners group.

“To me, if I ran the Boston Marathon and got that medal, I would frame it,” Tani said, “It would be that important to me.”

Fort Worth running coach Curt Thomas said he heard about the medal sales a couple of days after the marathon.

“I find it disturbing that you put in all this hard work to train or raise money for charities, and then there’s a tragic event and you try to make money off of it,” said Thomas, 42. “Me personally, I would never purchase anything from a tragic event that led to injuries and death.”

Thomas, who has run marathons in Los Angeles and New York, said he would never give up a medal from the Boston race if he were lucky enough to get there.

“I would probably wear it to work every day,” he said.

Brian Kelley, 31, a runner and blogger who conceived of the Boston Strong runs for people across the country to help raise money for marathon victims, said medals are a symbol of pride and accomplishment. Kelley is widely known on social media as Pavement Runner.

“I guess there might be an interest in having an official piece for historic reasons based on the impact it has had on the nation, sport and community,” said Kelley, of Concord, Calif. “I’m hoping that any money raised from the sale of official gear or merchandise is being donated to charity.”

EBay issued a statement of sympathy for those affected by the Boston bombings and saying questionable listings are reviewed.

“Out of respect for victims, eBay does not allow listings that graphically portray, glorify or attempt to profit from human tragedy or suffering,” the statement said. “Ebay’s teams are monitoring related listings to ensure they comply with our policies and also taking into account reports from our community members.”

Some runners said the race community was abuzz over the sales, but representatives of the big races, including those in New York and Chicago, would not comment on the eBay listings.

“What individuals choose to do with their runner medals is, and always has been, up to their discretion,” said Marc Davis, communications manager for the Boston Marathon.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

A victim of the Boston Marathon bombing says that he can’t stand to be alone since the tragedy, which left him with burns, nails and even pieces of his jeans throughout his body, and left three of his friends without limbs.

During the day, there are enough doctors, nurses, family and friends around that it’s possible to stay upbeat, Jarrod Clowery, 35, a carpenter from Stoneham, Mass., told reportersTuesday at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he is being treated for injuries suffered in the April 15 blasts. At night, it’s a different story, Clowery said.

“When I’m alone, I do think about what happened, and I think for a while, I’m going to need somebody with me — my sister stayed with me last night — so if I need to air it out, I can air it out,” Clowery said. “I’ve had a few cries.”

Clowery is one of more than 260 people injured in the bombing that killed three. Clowery’s surgeon, Robert Riviello, said his patient suffered deep second-degree burns over 10% of his body, including to his wrists, the back of his thighs, buttocks and other parts of the lower body.

Riviello said Clowery arrived at the emergency room with 40 metal objects and other pieces of debris in his body, including 4-millimeter carpenter nails, ball bearings, pieces of his denim jeans, plastic, glass and wood, probably from a tree. Surgery has removed some of the objects and others are working their way to the surface, but Clowery’s condition is painful, Riviello said.

He said Clowery should recover fully in several months.

“That’s going to be on you,” Riviello said to his patient. “It’s going to be a lot of work.”

Clowery, his voice breaking, said Riviello and the others who have tended to him have been tremendous support.

He walked reporters through the harrowing details of what happened on that sunny day as he stood watching the marathon with friends.

After the first blast, Clowery said, he was about to hop the fence into the street when the second bomb went off 3 feet away.

“I just remember feeling engulfed, and I got thrown out into the street,” he said. “Just like all the movies, all the sound got taken away. Something inside me said, ‘Get up, Jarrod. You’re OK. Just get up.’ I was OK. I was pretty lucid. I remember trying to count my fingers and feel my feet and thinking about these kinds of things.”

Clowery said his thoughts repeatedly return to those moments.

“I looked at my hand and it was too much to look at, so I tuck it in, and I look at my legs and I didn’t want to look at those anymore,” he said.

Clowery credited two first responders with helping him keep it together mentally. News photos show him sitting on the ground, clearly distraught, as two emergency responders try to calm him. One of them was named Jeff, Clowery said.

“He looks at me and says, ‘You’re going to be OK,’ ” Clowery recalled. “He said, ‘Jarrod, believe me when I tell you, there’s worse out here than you.’ I said, ‘Oh my God, my friends are all dead.’ Those two there,” Clowery said, pointing to the photo, “they managed to sit me down and managed to get me in the ambulance.”

Clowery said he was in awe at how smoothly the doctors and nurses at the hospital worked in the midst of chaos.

That night, Clowery had his first surgery to remove some of the foreign objects, Riviello said.

“I think general anesthesia was Jarrod’s first moment of some comfort,” the surgeon said.

Starting Wednesday, the carpenter will spend about two weeks at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, then go home. A crowdfunding campaign at GoFundMe.com has been set up to help pay his medical bills.

After rehabilitation, Clowery said, he’ll try to help his friends who lost limbs with their return home.

“My friends are strong guys, tough as nails, and they know that we’re going to come out of this better,” Clowery said.

And he will bounce back, he said.

“I’m not scared to go back,” Clowery said of the marathon and large crowds outdoors. “I’m not scared of crowds. I think that’s part of Boston and Boston Strong. I don’t know what I’m going to do the next Boston Marathon. Maybe me and the same group of guys are going to go right back down there. I don’t know.

“I’ve got a whole year to think about it.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

From quilts to cash, and from corporate campaigns to individuals, people across the country are extending themselves to help those affected by the Boston Marathon bombings.

Many are donating to The One Fund – Boston, the charity announced by Mayor Thomas Menino and Gov. Deval Patrick.

By Wednesday night, it had raised $24.8 million. Donors are sending money through running clubs, sales of hastily manufactured T-shirts and wristbands, and on their own. Donations to The One Fund will help those most adversely affected by the April 15 double bombing, which killed three people. Administrator Ken Feinberg, who handled payments from the 9/11 and BP funds, is planning meetings with the injured and families of those killed to decide how to use money from The One Fund (onefundboston.org or One Fund Boston, 800 Boylston St., #990009, Boston, Mass., 02199).

Some people are collecting money for the family of 8-year-old Martin Richard at the Salem Five Bank in Salem, Mass. Some have set up Internet campaigns for injured victims.

Giving helps people fight off the sadness of a tragedy, says Robert Cialdini, a psychology professor at Arizona State University who researches the social influences that cause helping. He says he has documented a phenomenon known as the “helper’s high.”

“Helping others is mood-enhancing,” Cialdini says.

Some people are running to raise money, show their support and release some of the sadness they feel over the bombings. Group runs being held across the country were the idea of fitness blogger Brian Kelly of Concord, Calif., known as Pavement Runner to followers.

In Memphis, the Breakaway Running store organized a run last Friday that attracted more than 500 people, store owner Barry Roberson says.

The store sold out of the 300 “Run for Boston” T-shirts it had made to benefit The One Fund – Boston and took orders for 500 more of the shirts that came with a $10 minimum donation. The store also had some people walk in and donate $100, Roberson says.

“People want to help,” he says. “The reason we’re all doing runs is that’s what we know.”

Jocelyn Hawkins Woods, 34, of Memphis, who has been out of full-time work since July, took part in the run and decided to donate in spite of her hardship.

At her church, she says, “We’ve always been taught you just go where you’re needed, even if it’s just a little something.”

In the Syracuse area Monday, more than 1,000 people showed up at a park in suburban Liverpool for a runners’ version of a candlelight vigil promoted by the Lake Effect Run Club and Fleet Feet Sports Syracuse, a running store.

“I thought maybe 30 people would show up,” says organizer Susan Brilla, 29, of Liverpool.

Fleet Feet employees handed out fliers explaining how people could donate, and many runners said they donated online, Brilla says.

Grass-roots efforts and simple ideas have snowballed into major campaigns.

Trish Johnson was at home in Brookfield, Wis., watching the bombing coverage with her daughter when she heard that Jane Richard, Martin Richard’s 6-year-old sister, had been learning Irish dancing. She lost a leg in the blasts.

Johnson has studied Irish dancing and her daughter, Bree, 21, has danced competitively and teaches at Glencastle Irish Dancers in Milwaukee

“We both looked at each other in tears and said, ‘We need to do something. What can we do?’ ” Johnson, 49, recalls.

That was the genesis of “Wrapping Jane in Our Love,” a Facebook campaign to take T-shirts representing Irish dance schools and make them into a quilt.

So far, they have collected 172 shirts from schools plus one cummerbund won by a male competitor and have received pledges for shirts from 293 more schools, all from 15 or 20 countries, Johnson says. Also, Michael Flatley, creator and choreographer of the Lord of the Dance musical, has sent a signed shirt as well as one signed by the cast, said Flatley publicist James Harvey. The donations have taken over a section of the family’s breezeway. A quilter in Boston has assembled a team to sew the quilt. They have enough shirts to make quilts for the entire Richard family plus a wall hanging.

Dozens of fundraising campaigns have emerged through websites like GoFundMe.com and GiveForward.com. The campaigns are requesting help for medical bills for people who were injured in the blasts. Donations are ranging from a few dollars to tens of thousands, some given anonymously, says Ethan Austin,president of GiveForward.com. A note attached to one anonymous $5,000 donation said, simply, “Believe,” he says. One campaign has raised $700,000.

Rebekah Piatt, known as “The Heavyweight Runner” on Facebook and on her blog, is hoping to donate $2,200 to $2,400 to the account for the Richard family from sales of about 150 T-shirts and four dozen bags she had made.

Piatt, a voice and piano teacher in Orlando, has drawn a following of several thousand on Facebook as she chronicles her road to weight loss and running marathons.

“I just thought, ‘I have 5,500 people who follow me. We need to do something,’ ” says Piatt, 32.

Corporate America has gotten involved too.

Competitor Group, the San Diego company that organizes the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon series, has launched the Run Now campaign for running retailers to donate. The company has produced wristbands that say “4-15-13,” the date of the Boston Marathon. All of the $1.99 price will go to The One Fund – Boston.

“If there was ever a time to run, run now,” says Competitor Group spokesman Dan Cruz, explaining the name.

Bondi Band, a company in Lewiston, Maine, that makes athletic headbands for women, has created five bands especially for people who want to support the victims and their families. One says ” ‘No More Hurting People’ – Martin Richard” — the handwritten words on a poster that Martin is holding in a widely disitributed hoto.

Proceeds from three of the headbands are going to The One Fund – Boston, and money from the other two goes to the account for the Richard family, says Tiffani Pittman, general manager of Bondi Band.

“What’s very consistent,” says Steven Lawrence, director of research for the Foundation Center in Washington, “is the emotional connection that people feel to those affected and their desire to make a difference, to help make them whole.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

The streets of the South End neighborhood near the Boston Marathon finish line were crowded with ambulances Monday night as runners and volunteers in the traditional blue and yellow jackets walked back to hotels or cars.

Ed and Valerie Lucas, from Newtown, Conn., said they were a little bit in shock. After last year’s horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, they had looked forward to being part of a pleasant international event where people supported one another and shared good feelings.

Ed Lucas, 41, ran in the race and finished before the explosions. He marveled at how everyone — even fellow runners — supported those in the race, offering encouraging words to get up a hill or make it to the finish line.

“Even the runners pat you on the back,” he said.

Lucas and his wife learned of the disaster when they returned to their hotel.

“I just couldn’t believe someone would do that to the Boston Marathon, where you have so many different nationalities of people, so much camaraderie,” Ed Lucas said. “Even at the (runners’) pasta dinner last night, they told us, ‘Make sure you help each out.’ “

Valerie Lucas, 38, said she and her husband were feeling shell-shocked. They know loved ones of some Sandy Hook victims, they said.

“You finally see inspiration again, and to have yet another place have a disaster happen …,” she said, her voice trailing off.

Ed Lucas, who ran the race in three hours and eight minutes, said even though the day had been traumatic, he would probably be back.

Runner Isaiah Douglas, founder of the Savannah Pacers running club in Savannah, Ga., who finished in three hours and 24 minutes, said he would return, too. Like Lucas, Douglas was done before the blasts. He had taken the subway back to his hotel and learned what happened when he stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts.

“I’m really disturbed by it,” said Douglas, 51, who has now run the Boston Marathon 15 times.

Still, he said, it wouldn’t deter him from a 16th.

“Even though I don’t understand what happened, it doesn’t scare me,” Douglas said. “They will have this marathon next year and I’ll be here.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.