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| A women in front of destroyed houses |
PLEASANT GROVE: Southern States of United States are hit by dozens of tornadoes which ripped through, flattening homes and businesses and killing at least 248 people in six states in the deadliest outbreak in nearly 40 years.
As day broke Thursday, people in hard-hit Alabama surveyed flattened, debris-strewn neighbourhoods and told of pulling bodies from rubble after the storms passed Wednesday afternoon and evening.
Alabama’s state emergency management agency said it had confirmed 162 deaths, while there were 32 in Mississippi, 32 in Tennessee, 13 in Georgia, eight in Virginia and one in Kentucky.
President Barack Obama said he would travel to Alabama on Friday to view damage and meet with the governor and families devastated by the storms. Obama has already expressed condolences by phone to Gov. Robert Bentley and approved his request for emergency federal assistance.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said it received 137 tornado reports into Wednesday night.Some of the worst damage was in Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 that is home to the University of Alabama. Neighborhoods there were leveled by a massive tornado caught on video by a tower-mounted news camera that barreled through late Wednesday afternoon.
“When I looked back, I just saw trees and stuff coming by,” said Mike Whitt, a resident at DCH Regional Medical Center who ran from the hospital’s parking deck when the wind started swirling and he heard a roar.
On Thursday morning, he walked through the neighborhood next to the hospital, home to a mix of students and townspeople, looking at dozens of homes without roofs. Household items were scattered on the ground — a drum, running shoes, insulation, towels, and a shampoo bottle. Streets were impassable, the pavement strewn with trees, pieces of houses and cars with their windows blown out.
