In all, 11 people from the apartment sought shelter in the concrete tunnel, which starts at SW 15 just west of Interstate 44 and ends a quarter-mile away at the Oklahoma River.

Frightened by a TV meteorologist’s warning to get underground, Virginia Shrum fled with her family and a friend to a long drainage tunnel behind their Oklahoma City apartment on May 31 to escape an approaching tornado.

Four of the dead were children, ages 4 and younger. The body of one — a baby girl — has not been recovered.

“What got us was the flash flood,” Virginia Shrum, 24, recalled Wednesday at the apartment along SW 17. “The water rose so quick. No one had time to think. … It was so cold.”

The adults tried to move against the sudden current, trying to get out of the tunnel the way they came in. The children were crying and screaming.

“It rose from my knee to my waist like that,” said Alvin Hennington, 20, snapping his fingers to demonstrate. “At first, I was trying to fight it, going toward the house and then I had to stop … I just let the current take me.”