Kids describe Connecticut elementary school shooting, their escapes

As many as 20 children were killed when a heavily-armed gunman opened fire inside a U.S. elementary school on Friday morning. Six adults, including the gunman's mother and the school principle, were also killed in this tragic incident. The shooter has been found dead inside the school following the attack.

According to reports, the shooter was 20-year-old Adam Lanza, the son of a teacher at the school. It appears he targeted his mother and her students before taking his own life.

And as the adults are still trying to unravel what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the students are starting to share their own experiences.

"We heard lots of bangs...we heard screaming," one boy told the journalists. "Then somebody yelled: 'Get to a safe place!' So we went to a closet in the gym."

Watch him describe his escape in this video:

Stephen Delgiudice, the parent of a student at the school, told CBS News that it appears the shooting began in the principal's office. His daughter told him that part of an argument was broadcast over the school's intercom before the shooting began.

Local and state police rushed to the scene and swept the building after reports of the attack came in sometime after 9 a.m. The entire school was searched through the morning as students were evacuated. Reports suggest that two handguns were recovered inside the school and a .233 Bushmaster was found at the scene.

"I felt scared and the other kids were shaking," says a third-grade student who was at the school during the attacks.

After safely making it outside, eight-year-old Alexis Wasik says she didn't know what was going on until another adult told them about the lock-down.

As first-person accounts started coming in, tearful President Barack Obama addressed the nation to say that the country has "endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years."

"They had their entire lives ahead of them. Birthdays, weddings, kids of their own," Obama said of the children that were killed on Friday.

William Wolfe-Wylie of Postmedia News wrote that a total of 31 school shootings rocked the United States since the Columbine High School shooting of 1999.