Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley says 1,700 people have been injured by the tornadoes that leveled communities across the state.
As of Friday afternoon, the death toll across seven states stood at 318 people, the majority of which were reported in Alabama, , making it the deadliest day for twisters since the Great Depression.
Wednesday's outbreak surpassed a deadly series of tornadoes in 1974 to become the deadliest day for twisters since 332 people died in March 1932. The storm eight decades ago was also in Alabama.
More than 30 lost their lives in Tuscaloosa, which is home to the University of Alabama. Two students are among the dead.
The largest death toll ever in the U.S. from twisters was on March 18, 1925 when 747 people were killed in storms that raged through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. In that outbreak, a single, 219-mile-long tornado killed 695 people.
-- AP and staff reports
OBAMA VISITS ALABAMA
President Obama visited the Rosedale area of Tuscaloosa, AL, in the wake of devastating storms.
The tornado cut a pat right into a large, low income apartment complex.
42 people are now confirmed dead in Tuscaloosa.
At least three were killed in the Rosedale apartments the president visited.
Some residents returned to the scene Friday morning to see what they could salvage.
Calvin Smith, a Tuscaloosa resident, was one of those residents.
His wife and niece were killed.
He says he hopes something good can come out of all this.
“I mean, it should bring people in Tuscaloosa a lot closer,” he said. “A little closer to God and love their family."
The Tuscaloosa News reports 900 people were injured by the storm in Tuscaloosa alone.
A curfew for 8 p.m. has been established in the city as authorities report problems with looting.
‘YOU CANNOT PREPARE AGAINST AN F5 TORNADO'
Megan Bennett hunkered in the basement of the University of Alabama library as a monster tornado leveled parts of Tuscaloosa.
"What we saw when we came outside was just unbelievable," says Bennett, a graduate student from Clemson, SC. "It was like nothing that even Hollywood has imagined."
Dozens are confirmed dead in Tuscaloosa. Hundreds were killed across Alabama in Wednesday's storms that produced 137 tornadoes in the South. Many people are still unaccounted for.
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley has activated 2,000 National Guard troops to assist in cleanup and rescue.
"We were prepared," said Bentley. "But you just cannot prepare against an F5 tornado."
337,000 people are without power.
-- Chris Cato with Associated Press Reports
THOUSANDS WITHOUT POWER, MORE THAN A DOZEN KILLED IN GEORGIA
Duke Energy reports more than 4,700 power outages across the Carolinas by mid-morning Thursday following the severe weather system.
Nearly a quarter of the outages were reported in Mecklenburg County, NC. There were 85 in Swain County and about 130 across Upstate, South Carolina.
The Rabun County, GA Emergency Management Office says Mountain City was one of the most heavily hit areas by the storm.
Preliminary storm reports from the National Weather Service shows a Rabun County, GA official reported a tornado touchdown with structural damage in the Lake Burton area with trees torn down and metal roof panels peeled off.
Golf ball sized hail was also reported with several homes destroyed according to a HAM radio operator and severe damage to a fire station in the county.
STATE: DEATH TOLL RISES TO 14 AFTER GEORGIA STORMS
RINGGOLD, Ga. (AP) - Authorities say the death toll from fierce storms that tore through Georgia has climbed to at least 14.
An official with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency said Thursday the latest death was reported in Rabun County in the northeast corner of the state.
Rabun County Coroner Sam Beck said a man was in his home in the path of a storm that moved through the county. No other details were immediately available, and Beck said officials were working to contact the man's family.
State officials say at least 114 people were injured across the state. Deaths have also been reported in Catoosa, Dade, Lamar and Spalding counties.
The National Weather Service says at least five tornadoes were reported in Georgia. Gov. Nathan Deal has declared a state of emergency in 16 counties.
Read more about damage in Georgia here.
-- Reporting from wspa.com staff and the AP
CLEMSON, USC HAVE TORNADO PLAN IN PLACE
After a tornado hit just beside the University of Alabama campus Wednesday, Clemson and the University of South Carolina say they have plans in place to deal with tornadoes, including ways to alert students to take shelter.
Both universities have text alert systems that will send warnings to all campus email accounts and to the cell phones of students who've signed up. The alerts would go out in case of a tornado, other weather emergency or any other safety situation, such as a gunman on campus.
Clemson spokeswoman Cathy Sams says there are also three warning sirens on campus that also broadcast verbal messages. "That's probably the most immediate thing we can do," she says. "So a siren would be followed by an announcement, which might say, 'Tornado warning, take shelter.'"
-- Robert Kittle
Below find information on storm damage and emergency response:
DEATH TOLL CLIMBS
Dazed Southerners on Thursday comforted one another and began the process of rebuilding after a barrage of storms claimed nearly 300 lives and reduced once-familiar neighborhoods to piles of bricks and lumber.
The grim death toll from the 24-hour storm period continued to rise, with 285 counted in six states. Among them were two university students in Alabama. Nearly 1 million customers were without electricity.
The vast majority of fatalities occurred in Alabama, where at least 198 people perished, according to state and local officials.
Gov. Robert Bentley and other officials stood Thursday afternoon in the bright sunshine in Tuscaloosa, the epicenter of the state's misery, to detail the damage and recovery effort.
"People's lives have just been turned upside down," Bentley said. "It affects me emotionally. When I fly over this, it is difficult."
The South endured the second deadliest tornado outbreak in the nation's history since 1950. Weather experts said humidity, cooler temperatures and vertical wind shear made for a deadly concoction.
A breakdown provided by Bentley's office showed that violent weather claimed lives in 18 Alabama counties. Thirty-six people perished in DeKalb County in northeastern Alabama, and 14 died in Jefferson County, home to Birmingham.
The death toll in the hard-hit city of Tuscaloosa, in west-central Alabama, was at 36 as of Thursday, said Mayor Walter Maddox. Three more deaths were counted later in Tuscaloosa County for a total of 39, Sheriff Ted Sexton said.
"I don't know how anyone survived," Maddox said. "We're used to tornadoes here in Tuscaloosa. It's part of growing up. But when you look at the path of destruction that's likely 5 to 7 miles long in an area half a mile to a mile wide ... it's an amazing scene. There's parts of the city I don't recognize, and that's someone that's lived here his entire life."
Thirty-three people died in Mississippi since Tuesday, all but one on Wednesday and Thursday, emergency officials said. Tennessee emergency officials said 34 people died in that state. Fifteen were dead in Georgia, five in Virginia -- where authorities revised an earlier count down from eight -- and one in Arkansas. The outbreak officially started Monday, and Arkansas officials said they have lost 13 residents since then.
CNN iReporter Thomas I. Carroll Jr., 47, who grew up in Smithville, Mississippi, took photos of the town, which suffered at least 13 deaths. He said at least half the city was gone.
"It looks like something out of Kansas. It's not expected in Mississippi," said the dentist, who rushed over Wednesday afternoon to check on his parents, whose house was damaged but they were uninjured.
Entire neighborhoods were leveled and hundreds of thousands of people were without power in the affected regions. As of 6 p.m. (7 p.m. ET), Alabama Power said about 297,000 customers had no electricity. The Tennessee Valley Authority reported 641,000 customers were without power as of 8:30 p.m. ET, at least half of them in northern Alabama.
Thursday evening, about 49,000 people in Georgia were without power, according to Georgia Power and the Georgia Electric Membership Corp.
"This could be one of the most devastating tornado outbreaks in the nation's history by the time it's over," CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said.
It wasn't just the incredible winds and funnel clouds that made conditions miserable for millions.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency in preparation for the Mississippi River cresting well above flood level. In Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour advised residents to prepare for levels 3 feet higher than in 2008.
Long before the death toll mushroomed, governors in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia had declared states of emergency within their borders. Virginia followed suit Thursday. Barbour said he was asking for a statewide emergency declaration.
"Our efforts are to put lives and businesses back together," Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said.
President Barack Obama on Thursday called the loss of life from storms in the South "heartbreaking," especially in Alabama. The "federal government will do everything we can to help (people affected by the deadly storms) recover," he said.
Obama announced late Wednesday he had approved Bentley's request for emergency federal assistance, including search and rescue support. The White House said Obama will travel to Alabama on Friday.
Bentley said Thursday he is asking Obama for a major disaster declaration. According to FEMA, such declarations are made when "an incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond state and local capabilities and that federal assistance is necessary."
In the DeKalb County, Alabama town of Rainsville, 25 bodies were recovered near a trailer park, said Police Chief Charles Centers. Many people are unaccounted for, Centers said, and authorities haven't even been able to reach all the affected areas yet, because some roads are impassable. Patrol cars are running out of fuel, and buildings including a school, homes and several businesses have been damaged or destroyed.
Israel Partridge, a local business owner who teaches search-and-rescue and who volunteered to help the Rainsville Fire Department Wednesday night, said one tree that had been uprooted and tossed still had a dog alive, tied to it. Partridge said he freed the dog and gave it to a family to take care of.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was monitoring the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant near Athens in north Alabama, about 32 miles west of Huntsville, after it lost off-site power Wednesday night due to the storms. The three units at the plant shut down automatically when power was lost, it said.
TVA spokeswoman Barbara Martocci told CNN no radiation was released as a result of the shutdown, and the plant is currently in a safe shutdown mode.
At least one strong tornado swept through Tuscaloosa, leaving dozens of roads impassable and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses.
Resident James Sykes said the massive twister was "like a silent monster. It was just moving at a steady rate and just demolishing everything in its path."
"It literally obliterated blocks and blocks of the city," Maddox, the Tuscaloosa mayor, said. He told CNN Thursday morning the devastation was "unparalleled ... the city's infrastructure has been absolutely decimated."
The University of Alabama, located in Tuscaloosa, escaped mostly unscathed, but two students died.
"From my understanding, these were two separate incidents," spokesman Bill McDaniel said. "The students are not believed to have been together."
McDaniel did not have details on who the students were or where they were at the time.
The university will not conduct final exams as scheduled next week and commencement has been rescheduled from May 7 to August 6, according to the school's website.
Bentley activated 2,000 National Guard troops Wednesday night and said he will activate more if necessary. In Mississippi, Barbour said he had also activated the National Guard. National Guard spokesman Maj. Tom Crosson in Washington said about 120 troops were in Mississippi and 50 more in Arkansas.
More than 1,700 people were treated for injuries at trauma centers and hospitals in Alabama, including those treated and released.
A Facebook page was set up for users to claim photos and documents found strewn by the storms.
"House mortgage from Tuscaloosa found in Rainbow City," said the caption on one photo. The two cities are 116 miles apart.
Several meteorological conditions combined Wednesday to create a particularly dangerous mix, CNN's Morris said.
"It is tornado season, but an intensive event like this only will occur maybe once or twice a year," he said. "It's very rare to have all these ingredients come together."
The town of Ringgold, Georgia, about 17 miles southeast of Chattanooga, Tennessee, was hit particularly hard, officials said. The storm also unleashed as many as 80,000 chickens in Pickens County, Georgia, after four huge coops were destroyed.
A tornado severely damaged Reba Self's Ringgold home in a matter of seconds. For a time, she thought she had lost much more than just a place to live, as she frantically searched for her mother, who also lives in the house.
"I'm screaming for her, 'Answer me, Mom -- please, Mom, answer me.' I didn't hear anything. It turns out she had gotten out of the house and walked around to the basement door, and she asked me if I was OK."
Self told CNN Radio she believes her mother is still in shock over what happened.
The storms are being compared to the "super outbreak" of tornadoes April 3 and 4, 1974, Craig Fugate, the FEMA administrator, said Thursday. In that period, 148 tornadoes were reported in 13 states, and 330 people died. States affected were Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
-- CNN
PARTS OF ALABAMA DESTROYED
In a neighborhood of Tuscaloosa, Ala., which took a direct hit from a tornado late yesterday, dozens of homes are without roofs, and household items are scattered all over the ground.
Streets are impassable -- covered with trees, pieces of houses and cars with their windows blown out.
A medical resident at a Tuscaloosa hospital fled the hospital's parking deck when the wind started swirling. He says he looked back and "saw trees and stuff coming by."
-- Reporting From the AP
ALABAMA EMERGENCY HEAD SAYS STAY AWAY FROM DAMAGED AREA
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Alabama's Emergency Management chief is urging people to stay away from the heavily storm-damaged areas of the state.
Art Faulker says people need to give search and rescue crews room to work.
More than 130 people have been confirmed dead in the state andGov. Robert Bentley expects that number to climb.
Bentley says 2,000 national guard troops had been activated to help search devastated areas for people still missing.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement