death toll from Wednesday's storms keeps rising.

This is so sad. It is also upsetting because climate scientists warned decades ago that rising greenhouse gases would lead to global warming/climate change, resulting in more episodes of severe weather.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42837437/ns/weather/

By GREG BLUESTEIN, MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
updated 1 hour 21 minutes ago

PRATT CITY, Ala. — Church groups, students and other volunteers worked aggressively Saturday to bring food, water and other necessities to communities ravaged by the second-deadliest day of tornadoes in U.S. history.

Across the South, volunteers have been pitching in as the death toll from Wednesday's storms keeps rising.

At least 340 people were killed across seven states, including at least 249 in Alabama, as the storm system spawned tornadoes through several states. It was the largest death toll since March 18, 1925, when 747 people were killed in storms that raged through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

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This week's tornadoes devastated the infrastructure of emergency safety workers. Emergency buildings were wiped out, bodies were being stored in refrigerated trucks, and authorities were left to beg for such basics as flashlights. In one neighborhood, the storms even left firefighters to work without a truck.

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Volunteers stepped in to help almost as soon as the storms passed through. They ditched their jobs, shelled out their paychecks, donated blood and even sneaked past police blockades to get aid to some of the hardest-hit communities. Students from universities elsewhere in Alabama, and even from as far away as South Carolina and Pennsylvania, have offered to pitch inwith supply drives and other aid.

Still, others said the government wasn't doing enough.
Eighty-two-year-old Eugene Starks was working with a tow truck driver to pull a blown-out car from what remained of his garage on Saturday morning. He was hoping the government would provide more help so he could recover what was left from his wrecked house.
"I'm trying to do what I can myself," he said. "I hope the government steps in, but I'm not holding my breath."

Of course, this is in a state which votes Republican, where people are against "big government". Where do they think the extra government workers are going to come from in a disaster this big?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42834400/ns/weather/

NBC News and news services
updated 4/30/2011 12:52:11 PM ET
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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The death toll from this week's storms rose to 344 Saturday, according to an NBC News count, making the tornado outbreak the second deadliest in U.S. history.

With some estimates putting the number of homes and buildings destroyed close to 10,000, state and federal authorities in the U.S. South were still coming to terms with the scale of the devastation from the country's worst natural catastrophe since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
In Tuscaloosa, Ala., alone, up to 446 people were still unaccounted for in the city, though Mayor Walt Maddox said many of those reports probably were from people who have since found their loved ones but have not notified authorities.

The number of deaths has now surpassed that of a twister outbreak that hit Alabama in March 1932, killing 332 people.

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Forecasters have said residents were told the latest tornadoes were coming, but they were just too wide and powerful and in populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count.

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Catastrophe risk modeling company EQECAT said that with initial reports of nearly 10,000 destroyed buildings, property insurance losses were expected to range from $2 to $5 Billion.
"Tornado activity in April is putting 2011 into the record books," it said, adding that the recent tornado outbreak had involved "hundreds of touchdowns, some tornado tracks reported to be almost a mile wide and tens of miles long causing hundreds of fatalities."

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In Rainsville, a northeast Alabama town devastated by the storms, people in cars stopped to offer bread, water and crackers to residents picking through what was left of their belongings. A radio station broadcast offers of help, a store gave away air mattresses and an Italian restaurant served free hot meals.

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The article included several heart-warming accounts of people helping the storm victims, as well as sad episodes of looting.

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