Tornado Levels School Wall in N.Y.; 7 Killed : Disaster: The same storm system devastated Huntsville, Ala., the day before. Two-day toll in South, East climbs to 27.

As stunned residents in this city Thursday began digging out from under the devastation of a tornado that killed 17 in a rush-hour horror scene, the same violent weather front blew in an elementary cafeteria wall in upstate New York, killing 7 children and injuring 18.

That brought to at least 27 the total number killed in two days of fierce weather sweeping through the South and East. Hundreds have been injured and thousands made homeless.

Even as the shock of the Alabama tornado was still fresh, the tragedy in New York hit.

About 125 students in the first, second and third grades were lunching in the East Coldenham Elementary School cafeteria in Newburgh, 60 miles north of New York City, when the storm struck about 12:30 p.m., state police Lt. Robert Hughes said.

The wall collapsed, showering concrete blocks on the pupils.

“It was a very quick thing and there wasn’t anything anybody could do about it because it happened all at once,” Mayor Donald Presutti said.

The seven dead students were identified Thursday night by New York State Police as Amy Innis, 8; Joanna Lichtler, 7; Larae Litchhult, 8; Peter Orsino, 8; Charles J. Scotto, 7; Adam J. Soltis, 7, and Maria J. Stuhmer, 8.

In Huntsville, the tornado also struck with little warning on Wednesday. The National Weather Service said the tornado path had covered between 8 and 10 miles and that its wind speeds were as high as 250 m.p.h.

Portions of the city presented a surreal landscape. A shopping center and clusters of apartment buildings were leveled. Cars were piled atop each other, or deposited atop buildings.

“It’s like taking 6 to 10 city blocks and putting them in a blender and putting it on liquefy,” rescue worker Bob Caraway said.

As the storm moved north on Thursday, it knocked over trees and ripped roofs off houses in West Virginia, injuring four members of one family, two seriously. The storm also caused flooding in Washington, D.C., blew the windows out of skyscrapers in Philadelphia and destroyed a house in Piscataway, N.J.

A truck driver died when his tractor-trailer overturned in high winds on a bridge connecting Elizabeth, N.J., and New York City. A New York City woman died after being hit by a steel beam blown off a water tower.

A severe thunderstorm in Illinois claimed one life and caused several million dollars in damage.

In Alabama, Gov. Guy Hunt, who is scheduled to tour the area today, dispatched 50 National Guardsmen to help clear debris and prevent looting.

Efforts by authorities to assess damage and by residents to put their lives back together were hampered as sleet and snow fell amid high winds.

Huntsville area hospitals were straining to treat more than 460 people who were injured in the storm. And 1,000 people made homeless were being housed in shelters and hotels.

Federal officials began arriving here early Thursday, including a team from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has promised to expedite aid to victims of the storm. Alabama officials, including Sen. Howell Heflin, aware of the slow pace in providing aid to victims of the Charleston hurricane, are vowing to press the federal government to cut red tape here.

Around the Waterbury Mall and the Waterford Square Apartments, along Airport Road, where the damage was heaviest, scores of people--some residents and some survivors of those killed--combed the wreckage of homes and apartments throughout the blustery day.

Crushed cars littered yards. Personal belongings, furniture, dishes, typewriters were strewn up and down streets.

Stories of terror, grief and heroism abounded.

When David Newman, a 21-year-old employee at MasterCare automobile repair, saw and heard the tornado coming at about 4:35 p.m. he, four other employees and a customer ran for cover in a ditch about 20 yards away.

“It kept getting darker and darker in that corner” of the sky, Newman said, pointing west. “It (the tornado) went down into the ground like a funnel. I saw it and turned around and ran. I went into the ditch. People say it sounded like a freight train but it was a lot louder than a freight train. You could hear metal ripping.”

Indeed, the automobile repair building, which was only built recently, was devastated. Metal sheets flapped in the wind, although several rows of tires remained lined up in rows as if untouched.

After diving into the ditch, Newman said: “I didn’t look up until after it was over. It probably was about 10 seconds, but it seemed like 10 minutes.”

When the storm finally passed, he said, he found cars overturned “everywhere in the street,” and many of the brick apartments across the street were leveled, their contents piled up amid the bricks.

At the apartment complex, Inge Hurford, huddling against the cold, stood gazing at what was left of an apartment, sometimes picking at the rubble. “My daughter died here,” she said. “I’m trying to see if I can find something, anything, that belonged to her.”

Hurford and her husband had driven 320 miles from Johnson City, Tenn., after hearing their daughter, Audrey, had died. Her body was found 100 yards from her apartment. Her car was found on top of a nearby jewelry store.

Cynthia Long, a Lutheran minister and friend of Hurford’s daughter, was helping to search. At one point, she said: “We found a shirt.”

Kim Sweeton, standing in front of another leveled apartment, was clutching a handful of silverware. It had belonged to her mother-in-law, Melba Sweeton, who was injured in the storm.

“She said she heard it coming and dove under her couch,” Sweeton said. Still, she was injured: a fractured pelvis, shattered elbow, lacerations all over her face.

Matt Ledbetter, a 25-year-old resident of the Waterford Square Apartments, was behind his home drinking a beer when he saw the tornado coming. “I grabbed my dog and ran under the stairs,” he said. “A lady was laid out hurt. We drug her into my place, where we had let in a medic. After that, I started digging people out. It was just chaos. People were hurt all over the place.”

Part of the storm’s awesomeness was its suddenness.

The weather service broadcast a tornado warning at 4:39 p.m., but it had already been spotted in the area.

“There was no warning at all,” Ledbetter said. Before the storm hit, Ledbetter had seen neighbors through their window sitting down to their evening meal. “When I went back out after the storm, he said, “they were gone. Their apartment was gone, too. Cars were on top of it.”