PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. — The death toll in five Southern states rose sharply Thursday morning to nearly 200 after devastating storms ripped through the region, spawning a deadly tornado in downtown Tuscaloosa, Ala., and leaving a trail of flattened homes and buildings in an area already battered by storms. States of emergency have been declared from Alabama to Virginia, and President Obama said in a statement that the federal government had pledged its assistance.þþ“Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this devastation, and we commend the heroic efforts of those who have been working tirelessly to respond to this disaster,” Mr. Obama said. “While we may not know the extent of the damage for days, we will continue to monitor these severe storms across the country and stand ready to continue to help the people of Alabama and all citizens affected by these storms.”þþAcross Alabama, at least 128 people were killed — 13 in the Birmingham area alone — and more than 300 injured by storms on Wednesday, said Yasamie August, information manager of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency.þþ“I would be pretty sure about saying we’ve never had 128 people die in one day,” Ms. August said. “It’s going to be difficult to get an accurate count of damage or injuries at this point. Many people can’t get to a hospital.”þþThere were at least 32 deaths in Mississippi, and The Associated Press reported 11 deaths in Georgia, 15 in Tennessee and 8 in Virginia.þþAs the storm churned towards the eastern seaboard on Thursday morning, tornado fears spread as far north as New York State. The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Maryland, and in Sullivan County, N.Y., northwest of New York City.þþA tornado cleared a path about a mile across Pleasant Grove, a western suburb of Birmingham. Nearly all trees are down in the middle-class residential community, and roads have been blocked by the police. Most houses have been destroyed, some torn off their foundations. Cars had been flipped onto their sides.þþThe large metal sign of the Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church had been knocked at a 45-degree angle.þþSharon Blue, 57, a real estate appraiser, said she had barely survived — huddled in her laundry room, clutching her two dogs, Sugar and Anna, and praying.þþThat room was one of the only ones in her one-story red-brick house that had not been destroyed. The house’s roof was blown off and shifted on its foundation. Ms. Blue said her refrigerator had flown across the house and had nearly slammed into her. Her collection of Bibles lay scattered across the glass-covered floors of the house.þþ“I thought the whole house was just going to take off,” she said. “It was like Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ I just held my little dogs and prayed.” She had only slight cuts on her legs.þþThe Pleasant Grove house owned by Joyce Smith, 54, who works for the county Board of Education, and her husband, Lee, 57, who works for a public utility, was hit even harder. Only a few walls were left standing and most of their furniture, including a large sofa, is now in their backyard.þþThe couple survived the storm huddled in a bathroom.þþMrs. Smith was standing in the yard Thursday morning, surveying the damage and sobbing into a cellphone. “It’s just all gone. There’s nothing. You just look around and there’s nothing. It’s all gone,” she told a friend.þþMr. Smith said people had been caught off guard. Tornadoes are not uncommon, he said, but they do not usually cause this much damage.þþ“There’s been so many storms that end up just being high wind and rain,” he said. “We figured this would be the same.”þþLooking over the damage that stretched miles in several directions, he said: “It spared us. But it got everything else.”þþIn the small community of Concord, west of Birmingham, at least eight people died. That town, along with nearby Oak Grove, took the brunt of the hit, said Mark Kelly, the spokesman for the Jefferson County Emergency Management Office.þþMr. Kelly spoke on Thursday morning in an interview from Pratt City, a northwestern part of Birmingham. He said he was standing amid near-complete devastation: the fire station was damaged, and homes had been flattened. More than 100 police officers and firefighters, most of whom had been up all night, were searching for survivors or people who had died, he added.þþAs for the death toll in the Birmingham area, Mr. Kelly said, “We certainly expect that number to go up.”þþIn Mississippi, the sunrise brought new fatality counts as well. So far, 32 deaths have been reported, said Greg Flynn, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. He said the number was certain to rise.þþIn Monroe County, a rural area south of Tupelo, 13 people were killed and more than 40 injured, Mr. Flynn said. Smithville, a town of about 900 near Tupelo, was hit particularly hard, he said.þþThe tornado in Tuscaloosa, one of several that struck Alabama, ripped through the city at about 5 p.m. Wednesday on a northwest path.þþIt veered past a major medical center, a high school and the campus of the University of Alabama. Officials said many people were trapped in homes and buildings. They feared that the death toll could rise in the coming days.þþMany parts of the state had been on a tornado watch throughout the day Wednesday, prompting schools, government offices and businesses to shut their doors early or remain closed, Mayor Walter Maddox of Tuscaloosa said in an interview Wednesday evening.þþ“I believe at the end of the day that will have saved many lives,” he said of the emergency measures. “We have so many reports of damage across the city. We do believe it to be significant.”þþMr. Kelly said the storm had picked up speed as it barreled out of Tuscaloosa and headed for the western part of the county, passing north of downtown Birmingham, which was battered by another storm early Wednesday morning.þþHe said that he had received reports of roofs torn from homes, people trapped in buildings and power lines strewn across Interstate roads, but that crews were just beginning to respond. At least 11 people were killed in Jefferson County on Wednesday, “but we expect that number will go up as search and rescue efforts go on through the night and into tomorrow,” he said.þþThe damage from the tornadoes was made worse by earlier storms, which left the ground so soaked that instead of the winds just snapping trees and branches, they uprooted entire trees and tossed them onto power lines, said Michael Sznajderman, a spokesman for the Alabama Power Company. He said that at least 335,000 customers were without power, and that with more storms on the way, “the number of outages could be as high as what we saw with Hurricane Ivan or Hurricane Katrina.”þþ“It has already surpassed Hurricanes Dennis and Frederick,” he said. “We have line crews on the way from as far away as Illinois to assist in the recovery.”þþPower losses were widespread across the University of Alabama, where many students were holed up after the tornado swept just south of the campus.þþEmily Crawford, a third-year student at the law school, said she had been preparing for an end-of-semester exam when the tornado swirled by. By nightfall she was still at the law school, which had become a refuge for scores of students, many of whom spoke of devastation in their neighborhoods worse than they had seen reported from Hurricane Katrina.þþ“It is surreal,” Ms. Crawford said. “People are coming up to the law school because they don’t have anywhere else to go. The school is sending buses into town to pick up students and bring them back to campus so they have somewhere safe to stay.”þþThe tornado was only the latest in a series that have struck the southern United States this week, causing heavy rains and flooding in an area stretching from Texas to Georgia, officials said Wednesday.þþBy Wednesday, the storms, which started Monday evening, had also left more than 50,000 people without power from East Texas to Memphis and destroyed scores of homes as the system moved east into Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. The storms were expected to weaken before moving into the Carolinas and up the Eastern Seaboard on Thursday and Friday, according to the National Weather Service.þþ“Folks in the South should be getting some relief,” said Tom Bradshaw, a meteorologist with the service.þþWind speeds have reached 135 miles per hour, and mobile homes have been tossed about like toys, Mr. Bradshaw said. Accompanying rains and flash flooding have hit northern Arkansas especially hard, killing at least six people since Monday. Some parts of northern Arkansas have received 20 inches of rain during the past four days.þþOn Wednesday, a levee on the Black River in northeastern Arkansas failed, flooding local highways but causing no fatalities, officials said.þþOne of the victims killed this week was a Louisiana police officer who died Tuesday night in Mississippi on a camping trip after he was struck by a tree limb ripped off by high winds, emergency officials in Mississippi said. The officer’s name has not yet been released.
Source; NY Times
