US tornado toll rises to 74: officials
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At least 74 people, including six children, have been confirmed dead in Kentucky after a raft of tornadoes tore through six US states, with power still out for thousands and strangers welcoming survivors who lost everything into their homes.
The death toll is likely to rise as another 109 people remains missing, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said.
But no more dead were expected to come from a destroyed candle factory as a company official said a final accounting showed eight fatalities. At one time, dozens were feared buried there beneath the rubble.
Some 28,000 Kentucky homes and businesses still lacked power on Monday evening local time, and 1000 homes were damaged or destroyed, officials said.
The dead, including at least six children, ranged in age from five months to 86 years old.
“You go from grief to shock to being resolute for a span of 10 minutes, and then you go back,” Beshear said.
Amid the rollercoaster of emotions, it has proven difficult for authorities to pin down the exact death toll.
Piles of wreckage, interruptions to mobile phone service and the number of people sheltering with friends and relatives have complicated efforts.
The final death toll from Mayfield’s candle factory will stand at eight, as the remaining 102 workers on duty when the tornado struck are alive and have been accounted for, a process that took three days given the chaos, company spokesman Bob Ferguson said.
“A tremendous relief,” Ferguson told Reuters. “And now there is a real urgency to help those who lost their loved ones.”
While Kentucky bore the brunt of the tornadoes, including one that tore across 365km of terrain, six people died in an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, four were killed in Tennessee and two in Missouri, while a nursing home was struck in Arkansas, causing one of that state’s two deaths.
Across Kentucky, neighbours and volunteers worked to house, feed and offer any other assistance to those whose homes were damaged, destroyed or stripped of electricity.
Homes across the town had collapsed walls, missing roofs and uprooted trees scattered across lawns.
President Joe Biden will attempt to raise spirits with a planned visit on Wednesday to hard-hit areas including Mayfield, the White House said, after the president declared a major federal disaster in Kentucky on Sunday, paving the way for additional federal aid.
More than 300 people in Kentucky, as well as in Arkansas and Tennessee, are being housed in Red Cross shelters, and that number is expected to grow.
Hundreds more have been placed temporarily in resorts at area state parks, Kentucky Red Cross Chief Executive Steve Cunanan said.
Still others stayed with friends and relatives whose houses were spared.
David Hargrove, 62, surveyed the rubble that was once his private law office in downtown Mayfield. Amid the debris, a vault that was built into the 23-year-old building stood as the only part to remain upright.
He plans to rebuild.
“You either sit down and cry or you get moving,” Hargrove said. “I’m not much one to cry if I can avoid it.”
