Nursery worker recounts scary moments when tornado hit Alabama day care

Amanda McCloud was working in a Selma, Alabama, day care changing a toddler's diapers when she heard the tornado sirens begin to wail. "Most of the time, nothing

ever happened," she told ABC News about the tornado sirens she's grown used to hearing, but she said it was different last Thursday. There have been at least nine deaths

as a result of a tornado that struck the South last week, according to authorities. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey declared a state of emergency on Thursday for Autauga, Chambers,

Coosa, Dallas, Elmore and Tallapoosa counties, tweeting that those counties "were in the path of Mother Nature's wrath." McCloud was working at the Crosspoint Christian

Church's child care and preschool in Selma, entrusted with caring for about six children that ranged in age from 7 weeks to 4 months old. Sixty children attended the preschool and

nursery, with students as old as 4 years old, she said. McCloud said she and her coworker tried to move the toddlers to a safer location within the day care once the

sirens began, searching for a windowless room to shelter in place. She found all four bathrooms filled with children and staff, so McCloud said she decided to shelter with the

children in her supervisor's office. With the power out, McCloud said she leaned over to protect a 7-week-old infant just as the worst of the storm set in. "And

then the roof just fell, like tiles and the ceiling tiles, you know, everything on top of us," she said. "So, like it was pouring down rain on the kids." McCloud said she

began yelling for help as the roof collapsed and exposed the children to the wind and rain.