Kansas Tornado Survivors Return To Ruin

(CBS/AP)  Rescue crews have twice searched the debris-strewn yards and splintered homes that once held Greensburg's 1,500 residents. They began a third sweep Monday to secure the area before families who lost almost everything were to be allowed back in.

Not much remained in Greensburg to go back to.

The F5 tornado, the most powerful to hit the U.S. in eight years, demolished every business on the main street. Churches lost their steeples, trees were stripped of their branches, and neighborhoods were left unrecognizable. Officials estimate as much as 95 percent of the town was destroyed. At least 10 people died in the storms.

Walking through mounds of rubble, CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan reported Monday morning that almost every commercial business was wiped out.

"We've been over the town twice now — all of our partners around the state, the experts from cities with technical search-and-rescue," Maj. Gen. Todd Bunting, the state's adjutant general, told CNN Monday morning. "We've done everything we can.

"Some of this rubble is 20, 30 feet deep. That's where we've spent all our efforts, and we'll do it again today."

The search may be furthered hampered by severe thunderstorms expected to pound the southern and central Plains, dumping another two to four inches of rain as well as producing hail and high winds, with the possibility of more tornadoes, CBS News meteorologist George Cullen reported.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius was in Greensburg on Monday, and Federal Emergency Management Agency director R. David Paulison planned to tour the devastation for the first time since the tornado hit Friday night.

President Bush declared parts of Kansas a disaster area, freeing up federal money to aid the recovery.

"There's a certain spirit in the Midwest of our country, a pioneer spirit that still exists, and I'm confident this community will be rebuilt," the president said.

The storm system that swept south-central Kansas also spawned tornadoes in Illinois, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Nebraska, and the heavy rain created flooding dangers across the region Monday.

In western Oklahoma, at least eight homes were destroyed, several more were damaged and one person was injured. A woman was briefly trapped when her mobile home was blown off its foundation in Seminole, said sheriff's dispatcher Terry Thomason.

In Greensburg, only the residents were being allowed back into town on Monday, and they had to leave by 6 p.m. Law enforcement officials planned to check identification and compile a list of people whose whereabouts were still unknown.

Mark Anderson, from nearby Pratt, told Sreenivasan, "I can only imagine the devastation for them."

Since the tornado hit, emergency responders have had little indication of how many people may be safe with friends or relatives elsewhere.

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