(Mayfield) US President Joe Biden on Sunday night declared a state of major disaster in Kentucky, which has become a symbol of the devastation caused by tornadoes that have claimed at least 94 lives in several states across the country.
This declaration, made at the request of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, will help unlock more federal aid. The president intends to be there as soon as possible.
Mr. Biden had previously lamented “one of the worst series of tornadoes” in the country’s history and called their devastation “unimaginable tragedy.” Search continues to try to locate survivors, but many officials have warned the toll could worsen.
This exceptional meteorological phenomenon crossed six states, leaving a trail of destruction for hundreds of kilometers, but it was in Mayfield, a town of some 10,000 inhabitants in Kentucky, that it was the worst. Kentucky alone has more than 80 killed, many in a candle factory.
“Remember, we are still finding bodies. We have cadaver dogs in cities where they shouldn’t be, ”said Governor Andy Beshear. He said the tornadoes also injured at least 80 people and left thousands more homeless.
The Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory is nothing more than a tangle of twisted joists and sheet metal, stacked several meters high. Equipped with cranes and bulldozers, rescuers searched the rubble on Sunday.
Some 110 employees were working at the plant Friday night to meet the demand for the holiday season, when the tornado swept everything away. Several dozen people are still missing.
Troy Propes, the general manager of the company that owns the plant, has defended his decision not to close the plant as the storm approaches. “We did everything we had to do,” he told CNN on Sunday. “My heart bleeds for everyone”.
“It demolishes everything”
“Words fail” to Jason Riccinto, volunteer firefighter, to describe the devastation on the site. “We dug the rubble yesterday, I spent eight hours there, the night before we worked until 4 am. I have never seen anything like this in my life, ”he told AFP.
With a few others, Stephen Boyken, pastor in a local church, rushed to the scene on Friday evening, to participate in the operations and “to comfort”.
“People were screaming, they were scared. I held the hands of those who were stuck, stuck under a brick wall, ”he said.
“We had an alert at 9:30 am, we were told that the tornado was coming. It came and went like that, suddenly, ”David Norseworthy, 69, told AFP in front of the destroyed porch of his house in Mayfield. “We’ve never seen anything like it in the area. Where it hits, it demolishes everything ”.
Elsewhere in Kentucky, but also in the states of Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee and Arkansas, there were the same scenes of flattened constructions, gutted buildings, twisted metal infrastructure, overturned vehicles, torn trees and bricks strewn in the streets. Mississippi was also affected.
At least six people were killed in an Amazon warehouse whose roof collapsed in Edwardsville, Illinois. Rescuers also continued their search there on Sunday.
Tennessee has recorded four deaths, two people have died in Arkansas, while at least two other deaths are to be deplored in Missouri.
Federal disaster response agencies have started to be deployed in the devastated areas.
“We will do everything in our power to help,” promised the Minister of Internal Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who visited the site on Sunday. “We will stay until the reconstruction is complete.”
Messages of sympathy poured in from abroad. Russian President Vladimir Putin thus presented his “sincere condolences” on Sunday, with the Pope addressing his prayers to the inhabitants of Kentucky from St. Peter’s Square.
219 miles
This violent meteorological phenomenon particularly affects the vast American plains. On amateur videos taken Friday evening, we see these huge black columns sweeping the ground, illuminated by intermittent lightning.
Kentucky was swept for more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) by one of the longest tornadoes on record in the United States, according to its governor. The longest that has been tracked on the ground, over 219 miles, occurred in 1925 in Missouri, killing 695 people.
About thirty of these storms swept across the country on Friday evening.
The United States is facing a “new standard” with the proliferation of devastating weather events, the head of the US disaster management agency (FEMA), Deanne Criswell, warned on Sunday.
In particular, she underlined the “incredibly unusual” and “historic” dimension of these tornadoes for this season. The month of December is usually rather spared by such events in the United States.
Mr. Biden had, him, underlined the day before that the meteorological phenomena were “more intense” with the global warming, without however establishing a direct causal link between climate change and the disaster which has grieved the country.