Tornadoes, storms rip US South, at least 295 dead

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.,  (Reuters) – Tornadoes and  violent storms ripped through seven Southern states, killing at  least 295 people and causing billions of dollars of damage in  some of the deadliest twisters in U.S. history.

President Barack Obama described the loss of life as  “heartbreaking” and called the damage to homes and businesses  “nothing short of catastrophic.” He promised strong federal  support for rebuilding.

Over several days this week, the powerful tornadoes — more  than 160 reported in total — combined with storms to cut a  swath of destruction heading west to east. It was the worst  U.S. natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which  killed up to 1,800 people.

In some areas, whole neighborhoods were flattened, cars  flipped over and trees and power lines felled, leaving tangled  wreckage.

While rescue officials searched for survivors, some who  sheltered in bathtubs, closets and basements told of miraculous  escapes. “I made it. I got in a closet, put a pillow over my  face and held on for dear life because it started sucking me  up,” said Angela Smith of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, one of the  worst-hit cities.

In Birmingham, Alabama, also hard hit, Police Chief A.C.  Roper said rescue workers sifted through rubble “hand to hand”  on Thursday to pull people from destroyed homes.

“We even rescued two babies, one that was trapped in a crib  when the house fell down on top of the baby,” Roper said in an  interview on PBS NewsHour.

Tornadoes are a regular feature of life in the U.S. South  and Midwest, but they are rarely so devastating.

Wednesday was the deadliest day of tornadoes in the United  States since 310 people lost their lives on April 3, 1974.

Given the apparent destruction, insurance experts were wary  of estimating damage costs, but believed they would run into  the billions of dollars, with the worst impact concentrated in  Tuscaloosa and Birmingham.

“In terms of the ground-up damage and quite possibly the  insured damage, this event will be of historic proportions,”  Jose Miranda, an executive with the catastrophe risk modeling  firm EQECAT, told Reuters.

‘MAJOR, MAJOR
DISASTER’

“We have right now 194 fatalities (in Alabama) that we  know,” state Governor Robert Bentley told a news conference.

“That is a major, major disaster,” said Bentley, who  earlier also reported “massive destruction of property.”

“We have neighborhoods that have basically been removed  from the map,” Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox told Fox News.

In preliminary estimates, other states’ officials reported  32 killed in Mississippi, 34 in Tennessee, 11 in Arkansas, 14  in Georgia, eight in Virginia and two in Louisiana.

The mile (1.6 km)-wide monster twister that tore on  Wednesday through Tuscaloosa, home to the University of  Alabama, may have been the biggest ever to hit the state,  AccuWeather.com meteorologist Josh Nagelberg said.

Obama said he would visit Alabama on Friday to view damage  and meet the governor. Obama declared a state of emergency for  Alabama and ordered federal aid.

“I want every American who has been affected by this  disaster to know that the federal government will do everything  we can to help you recover, and we will stand with you as you  rebuild,” Obama said at the White House.

Miranda said estimated costs would be “in the same  ballpark” as an Oklahoma City tornado outbreak in 1999 that  caused $1.58 billion of damage and a 2003 tornado outbreak in  Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma that caused $4.5  billion of damage.

The Browns Ferry nuclear power plant in Alabama was  expected to be shut for days, possibly weeks, as workers  repaired damaged transmission lines.

But the backup systems worked as intended to prevent a  partial meltdown like the nuclear disaster in Japan.

The rampaging tornadoes and violent storms destroyed 200  chicken houses that held up to 4 million chickens in Alabama,  the No. 3 U.S. chicken producer.

They also battered a local coal mine. Up to 1 million people in Alabama were left without power. Daimler said it had shut down its Mercedes-Benz vehicle  assembly plant in Tuscaloosa until Monday due to the tornadoes,  but the plant itself sustained only minor damage.

‘SOUNDED LIKE
CHAIN-SAW’

Some of the worst devastation occurred in Tuscaloosa, a  town of about 95,000 in the west-central part of Alabama, where  at least 37 people were killed, including some students.