Federal Aid Promised To Tornado-Hit States

Emergency Crews Head To Devastated Areas, As Bush Plans Trip To Survey Destruction

(CBS/AP)  Federal and state emergency teams poured into areas hardest-hit by deadly tornadoes that pounded across the southeastern U.S., as officials surveyed damage and emergency crews struggled to help victims.

"It really is unbelievable that Mother Nature can create that much devastation," County Mayor Shelvy Linville said Wednesday evening at his Macon County, Tennessee, home. "We need your prayers."

Rebuilding has barely begun in the northern Tennessee community of Lafayette and in the others where dozens of tornadoes ripped across Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama on Tuesday. The nation's deadliest set of twisters in more than two decades killed at least 55 people and injured hundreds more.

U.S. President George W. Bush called the governors of the affected states to offer support. CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reports that Mr. Bush will visit Tennessee on Friday to see the damage firsthand, and to offer assurances of federal assistance to areas devastated by the storms.

"Prayers can help and so can the government," he said.

Thirty-one people were killed in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky and four in Alabama, emergency officials said. It was one of the 15 worst tornado death tolls since 1950, and the nation's deadliest barrage of tornadoes since May 31, 1985, when 76 people were killed in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Officials now say there were 93 tornado sightings, reports CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella. One in Tennessee was an "EF-4" - a devastating twister with winds up to 200 miles an hour, powerful enough to level well-built homes and turn cars and refrigerators into missiles, reports Cobiella. Only one percent of tornados become this intense.

On Wednesday Gov. Steve Beshear of Kentucky visited areas hit hard by the storms.

"This is a horrible situation," Beshear said. "I am putting boots on the ground in these areas to view the destruction and determine how public emergency service can best assist those facing loss of family and property."

In Frankfort, state lawmakers prayed for storm victims.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour asked the federal Small Business Administration conduct a damage assessment of tornado-damaged areas.

"Although we are extremely fortunate there have been no reports of loss of life in Mississippi, our thoughts and prayers go out to storm victims in other states, where casualties have occurred," Barbour said in a statement. "However, we have more than 120 homes and businesses that were damaged or destroyed as a result of the severe weather."

Among the most remarkable survival stories: in Castalian Springs, Tenn., a baby was discovered unscathed in a field across from a demolished post office. A bystander swaddled the crying child in his shirt. There was no word on the child's parents' fates.

"He had debris all over him, but there were no obvious signs of trauma," said Ken Weidner, Sumner County emergency management director.

The National Weather Service issued more than 1,000 tornado warnings from 3 p.m. Tuesday to 6 a.m. Wednesday in the 11-state area where the weather was heading. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., put out an alert six days in advance.

There were no comprehensive estimates yet on damages, but the tornadoes' paths left behind flattened streets and treelines, shredded mobile homes, flipped-over tractor-trailers and trucks, and concrete floors where homes, garages and carports once stood.

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, who viewed the northern Tennessee damage by helicopter, said after his aerial tour: "It looks like the Lord took a Brillo pad and scrubbed the ground."

Weather conditions were ripe for tornadoes and forecasters were ready with warnings and in many hard-hit areas, sirens and TV warnings were credited with helping keep the death toll from being even worse.

In the mostly rural area of Lafayette, there are no tornado sirens. Linville, the county mayor, said he didn't think they would have made much difference because of the way the 23,000 residents are spread out.

"You don't really think it's going to hit you until you realize it's on top of you, then it's too late," he said.

Just outside town, Melissa Bryant watched as friends picked through the heavily damaged home where her 78-year-old mother Dorothy Collins survived in a bathroom.

"It's devastating and terrible," Bryant said. "But she's very lucky; she's alive."

The two-story garage was gone, and in a yard filled with debris, the bellows of a bull that neighbors said had been injured by a fallen tree could be heard from hundreds of yards away.

Students took cover in dormitory bathrooms as the storms closed in on Union University in Jackson, Tenn. More than 20 students at the Southern Baptist school were trapped behind wreckage and jammed doors after the dormitories came down around them.

With five minutes' warning from TV news reports, Nova and Ray Story huddled inside their home outside Lafayette and came out unscathed. But nearby, their uncle, Bill Clark, was injured in his toppled mobile home.

They put him in the bed of their pickup to take him to a hospital, and neighbors with chain saws tried to clear a path. What normally would have been a 30-minute drive to the hospital took well more than two hours because the roads were clogged with debris. Clark died on the way.

"He never had a chance," Nova Story said. "I looked him right in the eye and he died right there in front of me."

Sorrells, who with her mother and her mother's boyfriend filled garbage bags with belongings pulled from the rubble of her home Wednesday evening, said she was sitting on her couch watching storm coverage on television and talking with her mother by cell phone when the power abruptly went out.

"Something is hitting the house," she told her mother. Then, "It's here!"

The next thing she knew, she said, "I was looking up at sky."

[easeup-2009]

jwind11

LOL!!!!

Add Michelle to that post--she is suffering from a bad case of Bush Derangement Syndrome as well.

[jwind11]

iceman_1960 life:

4 years ago he is angry man, doesn''t know why, just angry. Turns on MTV, sees Sean Penn and Rosie Odonnell bashing someone named George Bush, he remembers that someone named George Bush is President. "Eureka!" he says, that is why I am such an angry man, because Sean Penn and Rosie Odonnell says I should be angry at the President. Iceman spends next 4 years posting immature angry comments about Bush, blaming him for everything. Makes him feel better about himself, easier to misdirect anger than to really do some soul searching to determine where real anger is stemming from.

Fast forward to 2010, Hillary is president, Iceman still angry, doesnt know why, turns on MTV, can''t find Sean or Rosie to tell him who to be angry at. Iceman gets confused, screams to self "who am i supposed to be angry at now?", 2 possible scenarios, has nervous breakdown because confused on why angry or picks up phonebook and finds number to a good counselor.

[iceman_1960]

"Just because you are upset with where your life is, do not blame the president."
- Posted by jwind11 at 02:44 PM : Feb 07, 2008

Who said I"m upset with where my life is ? My life is fine.

I"m upset at Bush"s failure to earn his salary with a performance of even minimal competence.

[iceman_1960]

"Bush could go on national TV, apologize for his 8 years in office, and then immediately resign."

After first accepting D*ick Cheney"s resignation.

President Nancy Pelosi: I like the sound of that.

[iceman_1960]

"Question to the Bush bashers:
What is it that Bush or next President can do that will improve your life?? "
- Posted by jwind11 at 02:44 PM : Feb 07, 2008

Bush could go on national TV, apologize for his 8 years in office, and then immediately resign.

[michellem99-2009]

I was a small child when Kennedy was in the white house..I could not read.I also think ye missing i have a dream by dr king..What can we do for this nation get off yer bum and use yer head and get back to what this nation should be..some one said the terrorists running this nation..care to say who it is..YER VOTE..YE THINK LONG AND HARD WHO SHOULD BE IT THAT OVAL OFFICE FOR WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT OUR NATION BACK.

[jt_lancer]

What''s another $100 million or so matter when the government''s already trillions of dollars in debt?

More debt to burden the next generation with.

[libsluvsuvs]

What is it that Bush or next President can do that will improve your life??
Posted by jwind11

If this government would hold Bush and his "gang" responsible for invading an unarmed country, being responsible for the deaths of thousands, lying to the very people he''''s supposed to represent, not to mention the world.
If the next president would bring back the Constitution, gain back the respect and trust we once had from other countries, allow no "perks" to corporations who have taken their production out of this country and put Americans out of work, efficiently handle the immigration problem and bring Americans back together then---that would make me very happy.

Most Americans are happy people, but have become very frustrated with the current "terrorists" running this country.

Posted by liberalme at 06:36 PM : Feb 07, 2008
+ report abuse

**************8

a famous liberal president once said "ask NOT what your country can do for you...but ask what you can do for your country"..

after reading what most liberals WROTE, it seems like thru the decades..these liberals had become too comfortable..too fat..too needy..too weak,,..ITS PATHETIC..

[rowdytexan2]

Posted by jwind11 at 08:45 PM : Feb 07, 2008

Well, then, God bless you...and if you ever have a catastropic event, I hope not a *** soul comes to help you, since you don''t need it or appreciate it.

[michellem99-2009]

People in this nation
they give love ones
to die in a war
Yet when they are in nrrd
That asre said sorry
People they are hurting here
This may sould cold
I could care less about that war
let do for us for achange
the war of bush will stop
We will cry and suffer as he
sells us out.