Joe Biden has declared a federal emergency for the areas hardest hit by Friday night's deadly tornadoes that ripped through the Mississippi Delta, one of the poorest regions of the US.
At least 25 people were killed and dozens were injured in Mississippi as the storm tore through several towns on its hour-long path. One man was killed after his trailer home flipped several times in Alabama.
Biden's emergency declaration will make federal funding available to Carroll, Humphreys, Monroe and Sharkey counties in Mississippi.
Search and recovery crews on Sunday resumed the daunting task of digging through the debris of flattened and battered homes, commercial buildings and municipal offices. The tornado flattened entire blocks, ripped a steeple off a church and toppled a municipal water tower. More than half a dozen shelters were opened in Mississippi to house people who had been made homeless.
The administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Fema Deanne Criswell, was scheduled to visit the state on Sunday to assess the destruction. John Boyle, a coordinating officer, has been appointed to oversee federal recovery operations. After Biden s declaration, federal funding can be used for recovery efforts, including temporary housing, home repairs, loans covering uninsured property losses and other individual and business programmes, the White House said.
The National Weather Service warned of a risk of more severe weather on Sunday, including high winds, large hail and possible tornadoes, in eastern Louisiana, south central Mississippi and south central Alabama.
The National Weather Service office in Jackson, Mississippi, said late on Saturday that the tornado received a preliminary EF-4 rating based on early data. An EF 4 tornado has top wind gusts of between 166 mph and 200 mph 265 kph and 320 kph, according to the service.
The tornado destroyed homes to piles of rubble as it swathed the town of Rolling Fork, which has a population of 2,000. How anyone survived is unknown by me, said Rodney Porter, who lives 20 miles 32 km south of Rolling Fork. When the storm hit Friday night, he said he drove there immediately to assist in any way he could. Porter arrived to find total devastation and said he smelled natural gas and heard people screaming for help in the dark. Houses are gone, houses are stacked on top of houses with vehicles on top of that, he said.
Annette Body had driven from nearby Belozi to Silver City to look at the damage. She said she was feeling blessed because her own home was not destroyed, but other people she knew had lost everything. She said last night, she cried this morning, looking around at flattened homes. They said you need to take cover, but it happened so fast that a lot of people didn't get a chance to take cover. Mississippi Governor, Tate Reeves, declared a state of emergency and vowed to help rebuild. He spoke with Biden, who also held a call with the state's congressional delegation.
According to Lance Perrilloux, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Jackson office, preliminary estimates from storm reports and radar data indicate the tornado was on the ground for more than an hour and spanned at least 170 miles. He said that's rare very, very rare, attributing the long path to widespread atmospheric instability.