area. As the storm struck the elementary school, approximately 120 children were eating lunch in the school cafeteria. One of the walls collapsed onto numerous children, killing seven instantly and injuring at least 20. Two of the injured later died in hospitals. When the tornado began to hit the school, the principal and other staff began trying to move students into the hallways in the immediate seconds before the collapse. Roughly 200 state and local police, fire fighters, and ambulance workers converged on the school to provide assistance, along with 25 ambulances, several fire rescue vans, and a helicopter. The search and rescue operations were completed by 7:15 p.m. EST (00:15 UTC) that evening. The disaster received a tremendous amount of national and international media coverage at the time of the tragedy because most major news media outlets were at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, just ten miles away, to cover the awarding of the Sylvanus Thayer Award to former President Ronald Reagan, and accordingly were on site within minutes. See also List of North American tornadoes and tornado outbreaks List of Storm Prediction Center high risk days List of tornado-related deaths at schools 1995 Anderson Hills tornado References External links F4 tornadoes by date ,1989-11-15 Tornadoes of 1989 Tornadoes in Alabama Tornadoes in Arkansas 1989-11-16 Tornadoes in Tennessee Tornadoes in Maryland Tornadoes in New York (state) Tornadoes in Kentucky Tornadoes in Georgia (U.S. state) Tornadoes in Ohio Tornadoes in Mississippi Tornadoes in Pennsylvania Tornadoes in South Carolina Tornadoes in Virginia Tornadoes in West Virginia 1989-11-15 Derechos in the United States 1989 natural disasters in the United States History of Huntsville, Alabama Madison County, Alabama November 1989 events in North America 1989 disasters in Canada