RALEIGH – US authorities on Monday rushed aid to southern states after powerful tornadoes cut a path of death and destruction, killing at least 45 and reducing entire towns to piles of rubble. The tragedy began late Thursday in Oklahoma, where a giant twister almost flattened the small town of Tushka — population 350 — tearing up most of its homes and businesses and killing two elderly residents.
The storm system strengthened and expanded on Friday, whipping up hundreds more tornadoes that barreled through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and North Carolina, before petering out in Virginia on Saturday night. “It’s the most significant damage by a tornado since the early 80s,” Governor Beverly Perdue told reporters in Raleigh, capital of worst-hit North Carolina, where 23 people died. Among seven people killed in Alabama were a mother and her two children sheltering inside their mobile home when it was thrown some 500 feet into the woods, landing on its roof.
Seven others died in Arkansas, five in Virginia, and one in Mississippi. An 8-year-old girl and a 47-year-old woman “were swept off a bridge by flood waters” while walking in the Virginia town of Waynesboro, said state emergency management department spokeswoman Laura Southard. A second child was pulled to safety. Falling trees snapped power lines and came crashing down on cars and houses, killing occupants and causing widespread damage. Witnesses described hailstones the size of grapefruit. “This is the worst storm, tornado-wise, since 1984,” Patty McQuillan, a spokeswoman from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in Raleigh, told AFP.
The year 1984 saw the most destructive tornadoes in more than a century, with twisters sweeping through Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, killing 57 people and injuring more than 1,000.
“I actually do remember the last one,” said McQuillan. “I believe that the destruction may even be greater this time than it was in 1984.” More than 60 homes in North Carolina were destroyed and more than 400 others sustained heavy damage. Aerial footage showed a vast Lowe’s home improvement store obliterated with no roof and flattened walls.
