Tornadoes leave at least 22 dead
PICHER, Oklahoma (CNN) — Residents in three Midwestern states spent Mother’s Day sifting through the wreckage of their homes, trying to recover from powerful storms that killed at least 22 people.
The storm system killed at least 21 people in the Midwest and then continued into the South on Sunday, killing one in Georgia and destroying a small town.
Sherri Mills was in the small Oklahoma town of Picher trying to find family pictures among wreckage that was a friend’s home. Mills said her friend was elsewhere when the tornado struck.
Thank God she wasn’t here, said Mills, standing in front of the piles of brick and wood. [She] lost everything. This was a two-story big brick home.
Another man in Picher said he was home with his family when the storm hit. He was blown around inside the home, and was lucky to be alive, he said.
We got down on the floor and huddled up together, and we weren’t in there 30 seconds when it hit the house, the man told CNN. We ended up right there under that door. At least, I was under the door, my wife, two granddaughters, and my daughter was all there, just bunched up against each other.
President Bush pledged federal support. Mother’s Day is a sad day for those who lost their lives in Oklahoma, Missouri and Georgia because of the tornadoes, he told reporters in Waco, Texas.
We send our prayers for those who lost their lives. The federal government will be moving hard to help, he added.
Later, aboard Air Force One, Bush contacted Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. And after arriving at the White House, he spoke with Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry. Bush didn’t specify what support the federal government would give. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA boss David Paulison also were in touch with the governors.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, Lisa Janak with the state’s Emergency Management Agency said one person people was killed in Dublin, just south of Macon.
And the nearby town of Kite, with about 200 residents, was destroyed, she said. The report I am getting is the whole town is gone, Janak said. I have worked in emergency management for eight years, and I never received a report like that before.
Authorities fear there may be additional casualties in Missouri, said Susie Stonner, a spokeswoman with the State Emergency Management Agency in Jefferson City.
It’s dark, and it was over a wide area. Some of the houses have been completely destroyed, she said.
A twister touched down in the northeastern corner of Oklahoma shortly before 6 p.m. and killed seven people in Ottawa County, according to emergency officials. And a 20-mile area in Picher was destroyed, said Michelann Ooten, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.
Another 150 were injured and an unknown number of people were missing.
Ooten said the town enlisted the help of firefighters from surrounding areas, who went house-to-house in a 20-block area, sifting through the rubble and searching for survivors.
It looks like a war zone, she said. Some homes have fallen in, some homes have lost roofs, and some are now just slabs.
Freelance journalist Mike Priest went to a heavy-hit neighborhood in Picher on Sunday, surveying an area where almost all the houses were were obliterated. Watch Priest film flattened houses
All the residents had left, abandoning their cars, clothes and even their pets, Priest said.
As you can see, some people’s pets have been left behind, and they are fighting over some food, Priest told CNN as he shot footage of the neighborhood. Just total devastation.
