PLEASANT GROVE, ALABAMA // Dozens of tornadoes spawned by a powerful storm system wiped out entire towns across a wide swath of the US South, killing at least 209 people in the deadliest outbreak in nearly 40 years, and officials said yesterday they expected the death toll to rise.
In Alabama, where as many as a million people were without power, the governor, Robert Bentley, said 2,000 national guard troops had been activated and were helping to search devastated areas for people still missing. He said the National Weather Service and forecasters did a good job of alerting people, but there was only so much that could be done to deal with tornadoes a mile wide.
"You cannot prepare against an F5", the most powerful category on a scale for measuring wind intensity, he said.
Dave Imy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's storm prediction center, said the number of deaths was the most in a tornado outbreak since 1974, when 315 people died. The centre said it received 137 tornado reports around the region into Wednesday night.
One of the hardest-hit areas was Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 and home to the University of Alabama. The city's police and other emergency services were devastated, the mayor said, and at least 15 people were killed.
A massive tornado, caught on video by a news camera on a tower, barrelled through the city on Wednesday, levelling it.
By nightfall, the city was dark. Roads were impassable. Signs were blown down in front of restaurants, businesses were unrecognisable and sirens wailed off and on. Debris littered the streets and sidewalks.
The Browns Ferry nuclear power plant lost off-site power. The Tennessee Valley Authority-owned plant had to use seven diesel generators to power the plant's three units. The safety systems operated as needed and the emergency event was classified as the lowest of four levels, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.
The storm system spread destruction from Texas to New York, where dozens of roads were flooded or washed out.
"We were in the bathroom holding on to each other and holding on to dear life," said Samantha Nail, who lives in a blue-collar subdivision in the Birmingham, Alabama, suburb of Pleasant Grove where the storm slammed heavy pickup trucks into ditches and obliterated tidy brick houses, leaving behind a mess of mattresses, electronics and children's toys scattered across a grassy plain where dozens used to live. "If it wasn't for our concrete walls, our home would be gone like the rest of them."
Most of the deaths were in Alabama, which had confirmed more than 130 deaths. There were also fatalities in Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Kentucky.
The governors in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia each issued emergency declarations for parts of their states.
The US president Barack Obama said he had spoken with Alabama's governor and approved his request for emergency federal assistance.
"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 in a statement.
Around Tuscaloosa, traffic was snarled by downed trees and power lines, and some drivers abandoned their cars in medians.
"What we faced today was massive damage on a scale we have not seen in Tuscaloosa in quite some time," the mayor, Walter Maddox, said.
The storms came on the heels of another system that killed 10 people in Arkansas and one in Mississippi earlier this week.
