Volunteers from neighboring Blount County, Alabama help clean up debris in the community of Pleasant Grove, April 30, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Marvin GentryBy Verna GatesPLEASANT GROVE, Alabama | Sun 1 May 2011, 7: 32 am EDT
PLEASANT GROVE, Alabama (Reuters)-the Government ramped up efforts on Saturday to help thousands of homeless victims of the country the second deadliest recorded tornado outbreak, where at least 350 people died.
President Barack Obama, that the destruction of the tornado in the hardest-hit state of Alabama on Friday examined and called it "heartbreaking", was sending top officials to the disaster zone to escalate this weekend federal assistance.
With some estimates put the number of homes and buildings destroyed at close to 10,000, State and federal authorities in the South of the u.s. were still coming to terms with the scale of the destruction of this week the country's worst natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Thousands of stunned survivors, many of whom have relatives and friends killed by twisters that blotted out had seen whole communities, were camped out in the shattered shells of their homes or moved in shelters or with friends.
A catastrophe risk modeler, EQECAT, predicts insured property losses of between $ 2 billion and $ 5 billion of the havoc caused by the swarm of Tornadoes which by means of seven Southern States this week gouged.
"It's like living in some other world. Destruction is everywhere, "said Pastor John Gates of the United Methodist Church in Pleasant Grove, Alabama, a community with a population of some 10,000 West of Birmingham.
Alabama, the hardest hit State, revised down its fatalities 249 on Saturday after initially reporting 255 dead. At least 101 more deaths reported in Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, Virginia and Louisiana.
Thousands of people were hurt and pain.
Stories of survival of the deadly twisters were still emerging but one report of a Jefferson County, Alabama, emergency official of three people pulled alive from their devastated home after three days turned out to be false.
The number of deaths, which is expected to increase, was the second highest inflicted by Tornadoes in u.s. history. In 1925, 747 people were killed after twisters the u.s. Midwestern States of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana hit.
Unlocking federal assistance, Obama signed late on Friday major disaster declarations for Mississippi and Georgia, to add to the one already signed for Alabama.
Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Lincoln, housing and urban development Secretary Shaun Donovan, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Small Business Administration Administrator Karen Mills were all affected areas in Alabama and Mississippi on Sunday, bezoekenFEMA said.
TORNADO HIT SUCH AS "EXPLOSION"
Obama, aware of the criticism that President George w. Bush was too slow to respond to the 2005 Katrina disaster, a visit to the devastated city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on Friday to pledge full federal assistance for States hit.
In many devastated communities, recalled scenes of tangled piles of rubble, timber, vehicles and personal belongings to the destruction seen in the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Electricity and water were still out in many areas.
In the small Alabama Phil Campbell, which lost 28 residents, Travis Roberts, 64, credited his wife Brenda fear of storms for saving their lives. When she was 35 years ago their property bought, he built a storm cellar for $ 600.
He invited seven of his neighbors to them in the basement when the twister hit but they chose to ride out in their homes. Now, five dead and two critically injured.
"It was not the wind, it was an explosion," said Travis are shattered at home as he got help from volunteers.
"It is no exaggeration to say that whole communities were wiped out," Yasamie August, spokeswoman for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, told Reuters.
Officials said even solidly built brick houses managed to resist the power of some of the twisters.
The winds of a in Smithville, Mississippi, was recorded reaching 205 km per hour. It was a rare EF-5 tornado, the highest rating on the Fujita scale of tornado intensity that improved measures.
"If you're talking about a EF-5 tornado level there is no place that really is safe," said Jeff rent of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. "That kind of tornado sucks the grass and concrete."
Were many whose homes lost roofs and windows only camping in with tarps and plastic sheeting about them but those whose homes were completely destroyed were forced to move in with family or friends or go into Government shelters.
There were 659 people in shelters in Alabama, August said. Tennessee had 233 people in shelters.
Volunteers in many communities turned out to help. "Big grills are set to offer people eat everywhere. The community has really pulled together, "said Tammy Straate, 29, a Pleasant Grove, foster mother of 11 children.
Tornadoes are an integral part of life in the American South and Midwest but rarely are they so devastating.
Recovery can cost billions of dollars and even with federal disaster aid efforts by the States concerned to bounce back from recession may complicate.
(Additional reporting by Colleen Jenkins in Saint Petersburg, Peggy Gargis will be doing in Birmingham, Leigh Coleman in Mississippi, Pascal Fletcher in Miami, writing by Pascal Fletcher; Edit by Bill Trott)
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