CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Sarah Tedder and her three friends thought they would come back from Alabama with stories to share about Space Camp. Instead, they are just glad to be back home.

That�s because the friends were in Alabama when deadly tornadoes touched down across several states, killing hundreds.

�The Space Camp wasn�t touched, but everything else around it was,� said Julia Tedder, one of the students on the trip.

Tedder said they were taken to a concrete shelter several times as sirens sounded tornado warnings. During one warning, they lost power.

�You couldn�t hear anything except the sirens,� Chloe Thomas said.

�We were just holding hands and hugging,� Sarah Tedder said.

Matt Richards, a chaperone on the trip, said that�s when he knew something was wrong, but it wasn�t until they loaded a bus to head back to North Carolina that they realized how much damage had been done.

"We saw like roofs off houses and houses like torn in half and cars flipped over and trees uprooted," Sarah Tedder said. �It was just -- it was bad. It was really bad."

At home in North Carolina, parents like Kim Tedder worried about what was going on with her daughters.

"It was very chaotic and the reception was poor but I think their teacher did a great job trying to reassure us," she said.

When they could, teachers on the trip would text or call the school and parents and let the children borrow their cell phones. The students weren't allowed to bring their own cell phones because the school didn't want them to be a distraction.

The school is considering changing that policy to allow students to use cell phones during designated times.