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‘Massive Destruction’ as Typhoon Kills at least 1,200 in Philippines, says Red Cross

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APTOPIX Philippines Typhoon

Photo Credit: (AP Photo/Nelson Salting) The Denver Post

By Manuel Mogato

TACLOBAN, Philippines (Reuters) – One of the strongest typhoons ever to make landfall devastated the central Philippines, killing more than 1,000 people in one city alone and 200 in another province, the Red Cross estimated on Saturday, as reports of high casualties began to emerge.

A day after Typhoon Haiyan churned through the Philippine archipelago in a straight line from east to west, rescue teams struggled to reach far-flung regions, hampered by washed out roads, many choked with debris and fallen trees.

The death toll is expected to rise sharply from the fast-moving storm, whose circumference eclipsed the whole country and which late on Saturday was heading for Vietnam.

Among the hardest hit was coastal Tacloban in central Leyte province, where preliminary estimates suggest more than 1,000 people were killed, said Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross, as water surges rushed through the city.

“An estimated more than 1,000 bodies were seen floating in Tacloban as reported by our Red Cross teams,” she told Reuters. “In Samar, about 200 deaths. Validation is ongoing.”

She expected a more exact number to emerge after a more precise counting of bodies on the ground in those regions.

Witnesses said bodies covered in plastic were lying on the streets. Television footage shows cars piled atop each other.

“The last time I saw something of this scale was in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami,” said Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, head of the U.N. Disaster Assessment Coordination Team sent to Tacloban, referring to the 2004 earthquake and tsunami.

“This is destruction on a massive scale. There are cars thrown like tumbleweed and the streets are strewn with debris.”

The category 5 “super typhoon” weakened to a category 4 on Saturday, though forecasters said it could strengthen again over the South China Sea en route to Vietnam.

Authorities in 15 provinces in Vietnam have started to call back boats and prepare for possible landslides. Nearly 300,000 people were moved to safer areas in two provinces alone – Da Nang and Quang Nam – according to the government’s website

The Philippines has yet to restore communications with officials in Tacloban, a city of about 220,000. A government official estimated at least 100 were killed and more than 100 wounded, but conceded the toll would likely rise sharply.

The national disaster agency has yet to confirm the toll but broken power poles, trees, bent tin roofs and splintered houses littered the streets of the city about 580 km (360 miles) southeast of Manila.

“IT WAS LIKE A TSUNAMI”

The airport was nearly destroyed as raging seawaters swept through the city, shattering the glass of the airport tower, leveling the terminal and overturning nearby vehicles.

“Almost all houses were destroyed, many are totally damaged. Only a few are left standing,” said Major Rey Balido, a spokesman for the national disaster agency.

Local television network ABS-CBN showed images of looting in one of the city’s biggest malls, with residents carting away everything from appliances to suitcases and grocery items.

Airport manager Efren Nagrama, 47, said water levels rose up to four meters (13 ft) in the airport.

“It was like a tsunami. We escaped through the windows and I held on to a pole for about an hour as rain, seawater and wind swept through the airport. Some of my staff survived by clinging to trees. I prayed hard all throughout until the water subsided.”

Across the country, about a million people took shelter in 37 provinces after President Benigno Aquino appealed to those in the typhoon’s path to leave vulnerable areas.

“For casualties, we think it will be substantially more,” Aquino told reporters.

Officials started evacuating residents from low-lying areas, coastlines and hilly villages as early as three days before the typhoon struck on Friday, officials said. But not all heeded the call to evacuate.

“I saw those big waves and immediately told my neighbors to flee,” said Floremil Mazo, a villager in southeastern Davao Oriental province.

Meteorologists said the impact may not be as strong as feared because the storm was moving so quickly, reducing the risk of flooding and landslides from torrential rain, the biggest causes of typhoon casualties in the Philippines.

Ferry services and airports in the central Philippines remained closed, hampering aid deliveries to Tacloban, although the military said three C-130 transport planes managed to land at its airport on Saturday.

At least two people were killed on the tourist destination island of Cebu, three in Iloilo province and another three in Coron town in southwestern Palawan province, radio reports said.

“I never thought the winds would be that strong that they could destroy my house,” LynLyn Golfan of Cebu said in a television interview while sifting through the debris.

By Saturday afternoon, the typhoon was hovering 765 km west of San Jose in southwestern Occidental Mindoro province, packing winds of a maximum 185 kph, with gusts of up to 220 kph.

The storm lashed the islands of Leyte and Samar with 275-kph wind gusts and 5-6 meter (15-19 ft) waves on Friday before scouring the northern tip of Cebu province. It weakened slightly as it moved west-northwest near the tourist island of Boracay, later hitting Mindoro island.

Haiyan was the second category 5 typhoon to hit the Philippines this year after Typhoon Usagi in September. An average of 20 typhoons strike every year, and Haiyan was the 24th so far this year.

Last year, Typhoon Bopha flattened three towns in southern Mindanao, killing 1,100 people and causing damage of more than $1 billion.

(Additional reporting by Rosemarie Francisco, Manuel Mogato and Karen Lema in Manila and Nguyen Phuong Linh in Hanoi; Editing by Jason Szep and Nick Macfie)

JYJ Fantalk Source: Yahoo News

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111223 Phillipines Reels From Typhoon Destruction and A Death Toll of 927

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Once again, especially during this Christmas season, prayers go out to those affected by the Typhoon.

Posted at 01:07 PM ET, 12/19/2011

Philippines Reels From Typhoon’s Destruction and a Death Toll of 927 (Photos)

Typhoon Washi swept across the southern Philippines this weekend, washing away whole villages and killing 927 people, according to the latest estimates.

A resident stands next to a vehicle swept away at the height of the devastating floods. (TED ALJIBE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

In a statement Monday, President Obama expressed condolences for “the tremendous loss of life and devastation” caused by flooding from the typhoon and said the United States stands ready to provide humanitarian assistance and recovery help.

Just last week, my colleague Elizabeth Flock asked whether 2011 was the year of natural disasters, with 12 disasters causing $1 billion or more in damage each in the United States alone, plus the Japanese earthquake, the Thailand flooding and the drought in Africa, among others.

The typhoon in the Philippines looks to enter the inauspicious list after the northern coast of the southern island of Mindanao was pounded for 12 hours with nonstop rainfall Friday. Of the 580 people who died in one city, Cagayan de Oro, the majority were women and children. The Associated Press reports: “About 143,000 people were affected in 13 southern and central provinces, including 45,000 who fled to evacuation centers. About 7,000 houses were swept away, destroyed or damaged, the Office of Civil Defense said.”

“The suffering here is unspeakable,” Philippine Red Cross Chairman Richard J. Gordon told Bloomberg News from Iligan City, where he is helping oversee relief operations. “The government should act here very fast. The people have already suffered, and they’re making them suffer more.”

A resident grabs a television swept away by flash floods (Erik De Castro/Reuters)

 This aerial photo shows the damage caused by devastating floods. (Richel Umel/AP

 Residents, affected by flash flooding, return to their devastated community (Bullit Marquez/AP)

 Water and mud clog village streets (Bullit Marquez/AP)

 With funeral parlors overwhelmed, authorities in a flood-stricken southern Phillipines organized the first mass burial of unidentified victims. (Bullit Marquez/AP)

 A man distributes relief goods to victims of Typhoon Washi. (Erik De Castro/Reuters)

 Affected residents clean up their homes which were damaged by Friday’s flash floods (Bullit Marquez/AP)

 Affected residents survey the devastation brought about by Friday’s flash floods in Illigan City (Bullit Marquez/AP)

By  |  01:07 PM ET, 12/19/2011

Momma’s Source: blogPost+yahoo news

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89 Dead After Tornado Hit in Joplin, Missouri

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89 Dead After Tornado in Joplin, Missouri; Number Expected To Rise

By the CNN Wire Staff

May 23, 2011 12:37 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: Structural engineers are heading to damaged Joplin hospital, owner says

Severe weather and widespread damage slow searches, Highway Patrol says

The tornado that struck the city Sunday night killed at least 89 people, city officials say

President Barack Obama orders FEMA administrator to the city

On CNN tonight at 9 ET, Piers Morgan has more on the recovery effort. At 10 ET on “AC360º,” Anderson Cooper reports live from Joplin and has firsthand accounts of surviving the tornado.
Read more about this story from CNN affiliates KOTV, KSHB and KODE. Share your stories, photos and video with iReport.

Joplin, Missouri (CNN) — A tornado that chewed through a densely populated area of Joplin, Missouri, killed at least 89 people as it tore apart homes and businesses, ripped into a high school and caused severe damage to one of the two hospitals in the city, officials said Monday.

“Everybody’s going to know people who are dead,” said CNN iReporter Zach Tusinger, who said his aunt and uncle died in the Sunday night tornado. “You could have probably dropped a nuclear bomb on the town and I don’t think it would have done near as much damage as it did.”

As many as a quarter of the buildings in the southwest Missouri city suffered major or significant damage, fire and emergency management officials said.

Parts of the city of 50,500 were unrecognizable, according to Steve Polley, a storm chaser from Kansas City, Missouri, who described the damage from the Sunday night tornado as “complete devastation.”

Live Blog: “It was like living in the ‘Twilight Zone'”

Aerial footage from CNN affiliate KOTV showed houses reduced to lumber and smashed cars sitting atop heaps of wood.

“The particular area that the tornado went through is just like the central portion of the city, and it’s very dense in terms of population,” Joplin Emergency Management Director Keith Stammer said on CNN’s “American Morning.”

Tornado damage in Waverly, Missouri

‘We are going to need a lot of help’ More than 1,000 law enforcement officers from 40 agencies in four states were in Joplin aiding with disaster response, said Colin Stosberg, a spokesman for the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Gov. Jay Nixon dispatched a specialized search-and-rescue team to the city, along with 140 National Guard troops and state troopers from other parts of the state.

President Barack Obama also ordered Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate and an incident management team to Joplin to coordinate federal disaster relief assistance efforts, White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro said Monday.

Searchers were combing the center of the city for trapped survivors as well as additional bodies. But the work was being slowed by a new round of severe weather that rolled through the city Monday morning, as well as widespread problems with broken natural gas lines and other safety issues, he said.

Joplin Fire Chief Mitch Randles said he believes people were still trapped in buildings Monday morning. Authorities warned the death toll was likely to rise.

The tornado struck about 6 p.m. Sunday and reportedly grew to as wide as three-quarters of a mile at one point along its estimated four-mile track, according to the State Emergency Management Agency.

St. John’s Regional Medical Center was hit directly by the tornado and suffered significant damage, according to a statement from Lynn Britton, president of Sisters of Mercy Health System, which operates the hospital.

One facade of the building made of glass was blown out, and authorities evacuated the medical center, said Ray Foreman, a meteorologist with CNN affiliate KODE in Joplin. Makeshift triage centers were set up in tents outside, witness Bethany Scutti said.

iReporter records destruction at medical center

The hospital was treating 183 people when the storm struck, Britton said. It was unclear if any were injured in the storm. The patients were taken to hospitals as far away as Springfield, Missouri, and northwest Arkansas.

Structural engineers were on their way to Joplin to assess the building, where 1,700 people work, Britton said.

Residents 70 miles away from Joplin in Dade County, Missouri, found X-rays from St. John’s in their driveways, said Foreman, indicating the size and power of the storm. Gurneys were blown several blocks away.

Missouri governor: ‘Total devastation’

Witness: ‘We saw power lines snapping’

Tornado damages hospital

Storm chaser: ‘Trees are de-barked’ Among other structures damaged, a Walmart store took a direct hit from the tornado, and a nursing home was believed destroyed, the State Emergency Management Agency reported.

The tornado caused significant damage to several Joplin schools, including Joplin High School, whose seniors had just finished graduation ceremonies at a nearby university when the storm struck.

The high school was ripped apart, Principal Kerry Sachetta said.

“It just looks like it’s been bombed from the outside in,” he said. “It’s just terrible.

The district canceled all classes for Monday as officials evaluated the situation.

St. Mary’s Catholic Church and its elementary school were demolished, said Recy Moore, a spokeswoman for the Springfield Diocese, which includes Joplin. The pastor, the Rev. Justin Monahan, rode out the storm in a bathtub at the rectory.

“Parishioners had to dig him out, but he’s OK,” she said.

Stories from the storm: Fear, tears, prayers

C.J. Campbell and his foster sister survived the storm, despite the home they were in collapsing around them. He called the tornado an “evil monster vortex.”

It began as a low roar, he said.

“Then it got louder and louder until it sounded like about 50 semi tractor-trailer trucks fully laden going about 70 miles per hour about 10 feet outside the front door,” he said. “The floor began to vibrate and then shake very violently and seemingly buckle, and we thought we were going to be sucked up the chimney.”

CNN iReporter Andrew Boyd said the devastation was difficult to comprehend.

“I remember at one point walking around the Walmart to the south and seeing the area that used to be Home Depot, and just standing there not knowing what to think or do,” he said.

The storm also overturned as many as a dozen tractor-trailers on Interstate 44 as it barreled through the town, a major trucking center. The interstate, shut down for nearly 12 hours, reopened Monday morning, according to Mike Watson with the Missouri State Highway Patrol. No motorists were severely hurt, he said.

Joplin, Missouri: Bonnie and Clyde hid out there

Amber Gonzales was driving through southwest Missouri when she heard tornado warnings on the radio. She took refuge at a gas station before getting back on the road and seeing the aftermath of what she narrowly missed.

At a shopping center, she saw people pulling victims from rubble and rushing them to the hospital as overwhelmed emergency workers were unable to reach everyone in need.

“I saw an older woman taken on the back of a truck bed, speeding down the road,” Gonzales said. “I can’t get the lady out of my mind. … I don’t know if she made it.”

Pastor Jim Marcum of Citywide Christian Fellowship church said he was delivering a sermon to about 100 people when a man jumped in and said, “It’s coming this way.”

“I didn’t know which was louder, us praying or the wind outside,” Marcum said late Sunday. He said those inside the church could feel the pressure of the wind.

“We were praying to be spared. I just thank God,” Marcum said.

After the storm left, church members went out to help.

“Every time people would leave and go out to help as part of a search and rescue, people would return and they would be emotional,” Marcum said. “We have one couple still at the church late into the night because their home was completely destroyed. They don’t have a home to go to.”

The tornado was part of a line of severe weather that swept across the Midwest on Sunday, prompting tornado watches and warnings that stretched from Wisconsin to Texas. High winds and possible tornadoes struck Minneapolis and other parts of Minnesota, leaving at least one person dead and injuring nearly two dozen others, police said.

Elsewhere, reports of tornadoes came in from Forest Lake, north of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and near Harmony, more than 120 miles to the south. In Minneapolis, witnesses reported numerous downed trees and neighborhoods without power.

Minneapolis police spokeswoman Sara Dietrich said the storm left one fatality, with 22 people reported hurt.

LeDale Davis, who lives on the north side of Minneapolis, told CNN, “This is the first time we can remember a tornado touched down in this area. They aren’t usually in the heart of the city.”

Forecasters said the system that struck Minnesota was separate from another storm that struck eastern Kansas on Saturday, killing one person and damaging or destroying hundreds of homes there.

CNN’s Greg Morrison, Holly Yan, Rick Martin, Sarah Aarthun, Ross Levitt, Stephanie Gallman, Jessica Jordan, Don Lemon, Sean Morris, Anna Gonzalez, Divina Mims and Steve Brusk contributed to this report.

Momma’s Source; Yahoonews

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Deadly Tornado Hits North Minneapolis

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Deadly Tornado Hits North Minneapolis

Story By Marlin Levison

Deadly Tornado Hits North Minneapolis

Mea Miller, 13, sits outside her north Minneapolis home where she and her family rode out the tree damage from the storms, Sunday, May 22, 2011. (AP Photo/The Star Tribune, Marlin Levison)
MANDATORY CREDIT; ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS OUT; MAGS OUT; TWIN CITI Mea Miller, 13, sat Sunday outside her north Minneapolis home where she and her family rode out the storms.

Posted: Monday, May 23, 2011 12:00 am | Updated: 7:31 am, Mon May 23, 2011.

Deadly tornado Hits North Minneapolis Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS – At least one person died when a tornado hit Minneapolis on Sunday, damaging scores of homes, toppling hundreds of trees and leaving 18 people with minor injuries.

City spokeswoman Sara Dietrich said the death was confirmed by the Hennepin County medical examiner. She had no other immediate details.

Tornado warnings and watches had been issued Sunday evening throughout parts of the central U.S. In Missouri, authorities said a tornado hit a Joplin hospital and caused the roofs of two city fire stations to collapse. Jasper County emergency management director Keith Stammer said a tornado hit the St. John’s Regional Medical Center and that there are multiple reports of injuries.

In Wisconsin, a powerful storm caused significant damage in La Crosse, tearing roofs from homes and sending emergency responders to search damaged buildings for anyone trapped inside, officials said.

La Crosse County sheriff’s dispatcher Tim Vogel described the damage as “significant” but told The Associated Press there were no immediate reports of serious injuries.

In Minneapolis, the 18 people who were hurt were treated at North Memorial Hospital, and spokeswoman Wendy Jerde said the injuries were not serious. The metro area’s other two trauma centers, Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis and Regions Hospital in St. Paul, reported no injuries.

National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Krause said the line of damage stretched from just west of Minneapolis through the city and into the northeastern suburbs.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said it wasn’t immediately clear how many homes were affected. “It’s a lot,” he said.

Though the damage covered several blocks, it appeared few houses were totally demolished. Much of the damage was to roofs, front porches that had been sheared away, or smaller items such as fences and basketball hoops.

The tornado left part of a garage door in a tree. Many large trees were uprooted and toppled or left leaning against houses.

Residents walked around their neighborhoods taking in all the damage. Some chatted on cellphones about what they saw, while others snapped pictures.

Others went to work, tending to downed trees with chain saws, machetes and hacksaws.

The tornado left a tree leaning against Pat Trafton’s house, but she said her family escaped harm.

“It’s been a crazy day,” Trafton, 67, told The Associated Press. “They say it was a monster tornado. … It all just happened so fast.”

Krause said it was clearly a tornado – the first to hit the city since August 2009. “There was no doubt right away,” the meteorologist said.

Some north Minneapolis residents told the Star Tribune they saw the tornado go through their yards.

“It went right between our houses,” said Tiffany Pabich, who was taking a nap just as the tornado passed. “A tree landed on top of my car. We smelled gas right away.”

The storms uprooted as many as 50 natural gas service lines in Minneapolis and suburban St. Louis Park, and CenterPoint Energy warned residents to be careful of gas leaks. Xcel Energy reported more than 20,000 of its customers lost electricity in the metro area.

The Minneapolis Police Department asked people who didn’t live in the area to stay away. A shelter for those displaced by the storm was set up Sunday afternoon at a nearby armory.

© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Momma’s Source; yahoo news

Editors Note

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Editor’s Note:

Devastation has once again struck in several places in the United States including Minnesota and Wisconsin. One death has been confirmed in northern Minnesota. Several tornadoes have wreaked havoc and citzens are in the process of clearing debris and pulling their lives back together The area where I live in Wisconsin suffered less damage than some. Please continue to pray for these areas and the people.
In Missouri, there is also devastation and 89 lives have been lost due to tornados. Please continue to pray for these areas and the people dealing with the destruction.
I feel that it is important to be aware of the weather conditions while JYJ is on American soil. That way we can pray for their safety also. Momma Cha

Survivors Picking Up Pieces From Deadly Twisters

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An Update on the devastation in the southern part of the United States. Please continue to pray for the families and for restoration. Momma Cha

Survivors Picking Up Pieces From Deadly Twisters

.

By GREG BLUESTEIN and MELISSA R. NELSON, Associated Press Writers Greg Bluestein And Melissa R. Nelson, Associated Press Writers – 3 mins ago
CONCORD, Ala. – It was bad enough that a tornado obliterated Derrick Keef’s house. Worse still was the heartbreaking scavenger hunt for his most priceless possessions strewn across the devastated neighborhood.

His guns were in the ruins of a neighbor’s home. A Christmas heirloom shared space in a ditch with broken glass and jagged nails. And his 7-year-old son’s bike — one of the few toys he could salvage — was pinned under a car a block away.

“I’ve been going from lot to lot finding stuff,” he said as he rifled through debris in Concord, Ala., in search of a family photo album. “It’s like CSI.”

As crews combed the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation’s deadliest tornado outbreak in nearly four decades, survivors were left trying to figure out how to put their lives back together.

At least 297 were killed across six states in Wednesday’s outbreak.

President Barack Obama planned a trip to Tuscaloosa on Friday to view storm damage and meet Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and shattered families. Late Thursday, Obama signed a disaster declaration for the state to provide federal aid to those who seek it.

“He just needs to do something,” Chris Travis said about the president as he smoked a cigarette at dawn Friday, looking around an intersection of a Tuscaloosa neighborhood reduced to splintered trees and crumpled homes.

Travis spent the night with his aunt and uncle, whose home may be salvageable despite roof damage and shattered windows. He said it was spooky in the dark, quiet neighborhood with just the birds and squirrels and occasional flashing of police car lights.

“Man, it was scary. I was shaking all night. Smoked a pack of cigarettes back to back,” he said.

Those who took shelter as the storms descended trickled back to their homes Thursday, ducking police roadblocks and fallen limbs and power lines to reclaim their belongings.

They struggled with no electricity and little help from stretched-thin law enforcement. And they were frustrated by the near-constant presence of gawkers who drove by in search of a cellphone camera picture — or worse, a trinket to take home.

“It’s just devastation. I’ve never seen this,” said Sen. Richard Shelby during a visit to storm-ravaged Tuscaloosa. “This is the worst tornado devastation I’ve ever seen.”

The storms did the brunt of their damage in Alabama. More than two-thirds of the victims lived there, and large cities bore the scars of half-mile-wide twisters that rumbled through. The high death toll seems surprising in the era of Doppler radar and precise satellite forecasts. But the storms were just too wide and too powerful to avoid a horrifying body count.

As many as a million homes and businesses there were without power, and Bentley said 2,000 National Guard troops had been activated to help. The governors of Mississippi and Georgia also issued emergency declarations for parts of their states.

“We can’t control when or where a terrible storm may strike, but we can control how we respond to it,” Obama said. “And I want every American who has been affected by this disaster to know that the federal government will do everything we can to help you recover and we will stand with you as you rebuild.”

The storms seemed to hone in on populated areas by hugging the interstate highways and obliterating neighborhoods and even entire towns from Tuscaloosa to Bristol, Va.

Concord, a small town outside Birmingham, was so devastated that authorities closed it down to keep out rubberneckers. Randy Guyton’s family, which lived in a stately home at the base of a hill in the center of Concord, rushed to the basement garage, piled into a Honda Ridgeline and listened to the roar as the twister devoured the house in seconds. Afterward, they saw outside through the shards of their home and scrambled out.

“The whole house caved in on top of that car,” he said. “Other than my boy screaming to the Lord to save us, being in that car is what saved us.”

Alabama emergency management officials in a news release early Friday said the state had 210 confirmed deaths. There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured — 800 in Tuscaloosa alone.

The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states.

Some of the worst damage was in Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 that is home to the University of Alabama. The storms destroyed the city’s emergency management center, so the school’s Bryant-Denny Stadium was turned into a makeshift one. School officials said two students were killed, though they did not say how they died. Finals were canceled and commencement was postponed.

Shaylyndrea Jones, 22, had expected to graduate from the University of Alabama next weekend with a degree in sports science. Instead, she spent Thursday moving out of her ruined apartment, where she rode out the storm huddled in a hallway. But graduation suddenly isn’t so important — she’s just thankful she and her roommates survived the night.

“It was the scariest thing I’ve been through,” she said. “We were saying our prayers as it was coming down the street.”

Police used bullhorns to tell people not to cross the tape to a neighborhood they were searching. On the other side, people were walking over glass, through pools of water, endless piles of debris and smashed cars. The city imposed a 10 p.m. curfew for Thursday and an 8 p.m. limit for Friday.

Search and rescue teams fanned out to dig through the rubble of devastated communities that bore eerie similarities to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when town after town lay flattened for nearly 90 miles. Authorities in Concord and elsewhere even painted the same “X” symbols they did in New Orleans to mark which homes they searched and how many survivors were found.

In Phil Campbell, a small town of 1,000 in northwest Alabama where 26 people died, the grocery store, gas stations and medical clinic were destroyed by a tornado that Mayor Jerry Mays estimated was a half-mile wide and traveled some 20 miles.

“We’ve lost everything. Let’s just say it like it is,” Mays said. “I’m afraid we might have some suicides because of this.”

Officials said at least 13 died in Smithville, Miss., where devastating winds ripped open the police station, post office, city hall and an industrial park with several furniture factories. Pieces of tin were twined high around the legs of a blue water tower, and the Piggly Wiggly grocery store was gutted.

At Smithville Cemetery, even the dead were not spared: Tombstones dating to the 1800s, including some of Civil War soldiers, lay broken on the ground. Brothers Kenny and Paul Long dragged their youngest brother’s headstone back to its proper place.

At least eight people were killed in Georgia’s Catoosa County, including in Ringgold, where a suspected tornado flattened about a dozen buildings and trapped an unknown number of people.

“It happened so fast I couldn’t think at all,” said Tom Rose, an Illinois truck driver whose vehicle was blown off the road at I-75 North in Ringgold, near the Tennessee line.

Lisa Rice, owner of S&L Tans in nearby Trenton, survived by climbing into a tanning bed with her two daughters: Stormy, 19, and Sky, 21.

“We got in it and closed it on top of us,” Rice said. “Sky said, `We’re going to die.’ But, I said, `No, just pray. Just pray, just pray, just pray.'”

For 30 seconds, wind rushed around the bed and debris flew as wind tore off the roof.

“Then it just stopped. It got real quiet. We waited a few minutes and then opened up the bed and we saw daylight,” she said.

In Tuscaloosa, hundreds of people walked in a long, slow procession down the town’s main four-lane drag. Some shot pictures and videos of what had been a bustling community. Others came to search the wreckage of their homes.

Seventy-three-year-old Frank Frierson sat on a porch and marveled at the damage.

“It was God up there letting us now that he is the boss, what he could tear up and what he could destroy,” he said.

___

Bluestein reported from Concord, Ala., Nelson from Tuscaloosa, Ala. Associated Press writers Holbrook Mohr in Phil Campbell, Ala.; Jay Reeves in Tuscaloosa; Phillip Rawls in Montgomery; Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va.; Kristi Eaton in Norman, Okla.; Ray Henry in Ringgold, Ga.; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C.; Michelle Williams in Atlanta; and Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn., contributed to this report.

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