The Montgomery Advertiser from Montgomery, Alabama • 2

Saturday, April 30, 2011 Montgomery Advertiser 2A Aid plies. He held a toddler in his arms as he talked with residents about their experiences during the storm. Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said his city would rebuild in a way that would give the president a story of pride he would tell all over the nation. Visible from Air Force One as Obama neared a landing in Tuscaloosa: a long swath of tornado damage that looked like a wide, angry scar across the land. And as the president moved by motorcade through communities and business districts, suddenly the devastation was everywhere: flattened buildings, snapped trees, collapsed car washes and heaps of rubble, twisted metal and overturned cars as far as the eye could see.

Earlier, as he arrived in Alabama, Obama fell into lengthy conversations with Gov. Robert Bentley and Tuscaloosa mayor Walt Maddox before heading off to inspect the damage and spend time with local families and officials. All told, the day had shaped up as an object lesson in the many roles a president must play, from healer to cheerleader, beginning with a nod to the country's civil rights past and ending with a speech to its future in a class of graduating students. The president was to end his day with the evening commencement address at Miami Dade College. The president has declared a major disaster in Alabama and ordered federal aid to assist with recovery efforts.

Auburn athletes lend helping hand Auburn coach Gene Chizik talks to players Jeffrey Whitaker and Trovon Reed in Pleasant Grove on Friday as Auburn athletes pitched in to help with tornado cleanup efforts. TODD VAN EMSTAUBURN UNIVERSITY Continued from Page 1A that launch was called off suddenly Friday because of a technical problem. As he traveled throughout Tuscaloosa, Obama absorbed the scenes of a community deeply deformed by the twisters, with trees uprooted and houses demolished. One young man told Obama he had witnessed debris lifting up all around him, yet he emerged with only cuts and bruises. 'It's a blessing you are here," the president said back.

The nightmare storms in the South have killed about 300 people, chiefly in Alabama. Obama has stepped into the role of national consoler in chief before, including after the shooting of Giffords earlier this year, but he has not had to deal with the scope of such community obliteration until now. "What's amazing is when something like this happens folks forget all their petty differences," said the president after spending time talking to the state's governor and Tuscaloosa's mayor. "When we're confronted by the awesome power of nature and reminded that all we have is each other." Obama spoke with sleeves up rolled up under sunny skies, offering warm reassurances but no big display ofemotioa The president later stopped at an elementary school that was severely damaged during the storm but was being used as a distribution center for aid sup Mss. tornado given highest rating of EF-5 i Town Continued from Page 1A 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 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 are 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 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.

Blalock lives in Ider, another town about 15 miles away hard hit by the same tornado that blasted Rainsville. She was thankful to be alive Wednesday, and spent Thursday checking on friends and family. By Friday, she was starting to get frustrated because no one seemed to know when power would return or the water service would be reliable. "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.

'Teople want that bit of closure now," Chandler said. i 4 -r i i- riiL. An aerial photo taken Thursday shows destruction left by the EF-5 tornado that hit Smithville, on Wednesday. THOMAS WELLSAPNORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI DAILY JOURNAL By Kristi Eaton The Associated Press NORMAN, Okla. At least one of the massive tornadoes that killed hundreds across the South was a devastating EF-5 storm, and the National Weather Service expects to determine that "many more" also were the worst of the worst.

After the first day of assessing storm damage, the weather service said the tornado that hit Smithville, at 2:44 p.m. on Wednesday was an EF-5 storm. That's the highest rating given to assess a tornado's wind speed, and is based in part on damage caused by the storm. The weather service said the half-mile wide Smithville tornado had peak winds of 205 mph and was on the ground for close to three miles, killing 14 and injuring 40. It was the first EF-5 tornado to strike Mississippi since 1966, and the first EF-5 tornado in the United States since a May 25, 2008, storm in Park-ersburg, Iowa.

Meteorologist Jim La-Due at the weather service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, said he expects "many more" of the tornadoes that killed at least 297 people during Wednesday's brutal outbreak of severe weather will be rated EF-5. The weather service also is sending assessment teams back out to review more damage in several Chaos Continued from Page 1A though he added that many of those reports probably were from people who have since found their loved ones but have not notified authorities. Cadaver-detecting dogs were deployed in the city Friday but they had not found any remains, Maddox said. During the mayor's news conference, a man asked him for help getting into his home, and broke down as he told his story. "You have the right to cry," Maddox told him.

"And I can tell you the people of Tuscaloosa are crying with you." Somber day for state Flags fly at half-staff atop the Alabama Capitol in downtown Montgomery on Friday, lloyd gallmanadvertiser See photos and video from Wednesday's storm and its aftermath at montgomeryadvertiser.com built, less than 10 years old and bolted to their foundation. The plumbing systems and appliances in the worst part of the storm's damage path were either shredded or missing entirely, as is a 1965 Chevrolet pickup truck that was parked in front of one of the destroyed homes. 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. Tuscaloosa's emergency management center was destroyed, so officials used space in one of the city's most prominent buildings the University of Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium as a substitute before moving operations to the Alabama Fire College.

A fire station was de states, including Mississippi and Alabama. The assessments are preliminary, and are based on photos taken during the ground surveys and consultation with experts. They will be confirmed later this year. The Smithville tornado rated EF-5 destroyed 18 homes, which the weather service said were well Tornadoes struck with unexpected speed in several states, and the difference between life and death was hard to fathom. 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. "The first night they took my jewelry, my watch, my guns," Shirley Long said Friday. "They were out here again last night doing it again." Overwhelmed Tuscaloosa police imposed a curfew and got help from National Guard troops to try to stop the scavenging. stroyed 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 fire truck, city Fire Chief Alan Martin said.

Martin said the department is running normally and has since deployed a backup vehicle to serve the neighborhood. "In reality, it's just an extension of what we do every day," he said. Also wiped out was a Salvation Army building, costing Tuscaloosa much-needed shelter space. And that's just part of the problem in providing emergency aid, said Sister Carol Ann Gray of the local Catholic Social Services office. "It has been extremely difficult to coordinate because so many people have been affected some of the very same people you'd look to for assistance," Gray said.

Alabama emergency management officials said Friday that the state had 238 confirmed deaths. There were 34 deaths in Mississippi, 34 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia, two in Louisiana and one in Kentucky. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has responded to all affected areas and has officials on the ground in Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia and Tennessee, Director Craig Fugate said. State and local authorities remain in charge of response and recovery efforts, Fugate said. SETTING IT STRAIGHT Correction A story in Friday's Montgomery Advertiser about the Eclectic tornado misidentified a storm victim due to an editing error.

Tammy Abernathy should have been identified as Candice Aberna-thy's niece. A Bell Street ft Mnntnomoru! Advertiser 42i Moton it. Mail P.O. Box 1000 Montgomery AL 36101-1000 CUSTOMER SERVICE To subscribe or to report a missing paper 334-269-0010 Call the Montgomery Advertiser Customer Service Department Monday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.; Tuesday through Friday 10a.m.

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