Courier-Post from Camden, New Jersey • Page 3

COURIER-POST, Saturday, April 30, 2011 3A I' i. i i I Rescuers face own wreckage in storm area courierpostonline.comworldreport ROGEUO V. SOLISAssociated Press Hackleburg, residents survey damage to the town's only clinic after Wednesday's tornadoes. Across the South, police stations, firehouses and other emergency buildings were among the structures flattened. Alabamans try to pick up the pieces for in the city, though he added that many of those reports probably were from people who have since found their loved ones but have not told authorities.

At least one tornado a 205 mph monster that left at least 13 people dead in Smithville, Miss. ranked in the National Weather Service's most devastating category, EF-5. Meteorologist Jim LaDue said he expects "many more" of Wednesday's tornadoes to receive that same rating, with winds topping 200 mph. Looters surface By Friday, residents whose homes were blown to pieces were seeing their losses worsen not by nature, but by man. In Tuscaloosa and other cities, looters have been picking through the wreckage to steal what little the victims have left.

Overwhelmed Tuscaloosa police imposed a curfew and got help from National Guard troops to try to stop the scavenging. Along their flattened paths, the twisters blew down police and fire stations and other emergency buildings along with homes, businesses, churches and power infrastructure. The number of buildings lost, damage estimates and number of people left homeless remained unclear two days later, in part because the storm also ravaged communications systems. A fire station was destroyed in nearby Alberta City, one of the city's worst-hit neighborhoods. The firefighters survived, but damage to their equipment forced them to begin rescue operations without a truck, Fire Chief Alan Martin said.

By JAY REEVES and GREG BLUESTEIN Associated Press TUSCALOOSA, Ala. Southerners found their emergency safety net shredded Friday as they tried to emerge from the nation's deadliest tornado disaster since the Great Depression. Emergency buildings are wiped out Bodies are stored in refrigerated trucks. Authorities are begging for such basics as flashlights. In one neighborhood, the storms even left firefighters to work without a truck.

The death toll from Wednesday's storms reached 329 across seven states, including 238 in Alabama, making it the deadliest U.S. tornado outbreak since March 1932, when another Alabama storm killed 332 people. Tornadoes that swept across the South and Midwest in April 1974 left 315 people dead. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured Wednesday 990 in loosa alone and as many as 1 million Alabama homes and businesses remained without power. Humanitarian crisis The scale of the disaster astonished President Barack Obama when he arrived in the state Friday.

"I've never seen devastation like this," he said, standing in bright sunshine amid the wreckage in Tuscaloosa, where at least 45 people were killed and entire neighborhoods were flattened. Mayor Walt Maddox called it "a humanitarian crisis" for his city of more than 83,000. Maddox said up to 446 people were unaccounted and filling prescriptions as fast as they can for people like Jennifer Blalock. She said if her son hadn't gotten his asthma medicine, she likely would have had to take him to the emergency room. "Everything is out," she said.

"Everything thawed out in our fridge. I cooked it all yesterday and gave it away. But now I can't find an open grocery store to get more food." At Rainsville Funeral Home, Chandler can't spend much time reflecting. She and her husband believe funerals shouldn't be delayed just because it could be a week or more before power is restored. Friends are pitching in, trying to find gas to keep the generator going and to make sure the hearse is ready to pick up another body or head to the cemetery in the next few days.

They haven't had to stop to get a meal, as people keep bringing food by. "People want that bit of closure now," Chandler said. By JEFFREY COLLINS and HOLBROOK MOHR Associated Press RAINSVILLE, Ala. Lisa Chandler and her husband have been working nonstop since the deadly tornado outbreak, moving around the one generator powering their funeral home so they can get ready for services for six of the dead. Some are people they knew.

"How am I handling it? I cry a little and I pray a lot," she said. Small towns like Rains-ville, in the northeast corner of the state, were once just dots on the map, rural places few outsiders had ever heard of. Now they're wrenching scenes of destruction from storms that killed hundreds in seven states. Rainsville, Hackleburg, Cordova and PhU Campbell in Alabama; Smithville in Mississippi. All have populations under 5,000.

All lost at least 14 people. Rainsville and the small towns north and south lost 32. will burn down their homes with candles. Bodies are being kept in a refrigerated truck. Looters ran through the nearby Wrangler clothing distribution center, and police made sure they locked drugs from a destroyed pharmacy in a bank vault, said Stanley Webb, chief agent in the county's drug task force.

"If people steal, we aret not playing around, they will go to jail," Webb said. In Rainsville and elsewhere in DeKalb County, the main sounds are chain saws and generators. Emergency officials say power is out in the entire county, and the earliest estimate they have for when it will be restored is early next week. One of the few places open was Rainsville Drugs. Pharmacist Wade Phillips brought a generator down from Chattanooga, about 50 miles away.

They've been open from 8 a.m. to dark the past two days, selling essential items like batteries and diapers "It's been heartbreaking," said Rhonda Jackson, who spent the last two days in Rainsville grilling hot dogs donated by a fast food chain for anyone who needed food. "You have to have faith, and believe things are going to be all right, but you also have to know it's going to be tough for a while." The sun still comes up and sets, but without power, those seem like the only benchmarks during the day. Stoplights are out, leaving drivers to fend for themselves at intersections. Most restaurants are closed, with the few open giving away food that was going to spoil anyway.

A few stores, mostly Dollar Generals, are taking one customer at a time so people won't be tempted to steal in the darkened aisles. Hackleburg, in northwest Alabama, doesn't even have a grocery store anymore. The police and fire departments are gone too, and officials are begging for body bags and flashlights because they're afraid residents with no electricity 1, A mm NEW 2011 Wm MsSsm REAR CAMERA REMOTE KEYLESS I I Ji nun" ONSTAR HAVIGATIOH SYSTEM TERRAINS Si BRAND f-I-irri ENTRY POWER WINDOWS FRONTSIDE CURTAIN AIRBAGS POWER LOCKS 4-WHEEL ANTI-LOCK BRAKES 105 VIEW XM SATELLITE RADIO ALLOY WHEELS AMEM WAUX INPUT SOFT RIDE SUSPENSION LAMPS PER MO. 39 MOS. 111 in SALE! IN-STOCK, IN-BOUND 0 FOG LEASE FOR fflf I I DOWN I I SECURITY I I DUE AT PAYMENT I DEPOSIT SIGNING StkilWX.

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