Mossy Grove, Tenn. — President Bush declared 16 Tennessee counties disaster areas Wednesday, freeing millions in federal aid for a state that lost 17 people in weekend tornadoes that cut a deadly path across five states.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Joe Allbaugh brought the news to still-dazed victims in this mountain community 40 miles northwest of Knoxville.
"You are brave souls," said Allbaugh, who spoke with Bush by telephone as he walked amid the mud and smoke from burning debris in what was once a neighborhood of two dozen brick houses and trailers. The tornado demolished half of them.
State and federal assessment teams were also checking damage in Alabama, Mississippi and Ohio. In all, 36 people were killed in those states and Pennsylvania.
The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said more than 1,200 homes were damaged and 117 others were destroyed. At least 15 public buildings and 43 businesses also were damaged.
State Farm Insurance Co., one of the major carriers in the state, had nearly 1,500 claims for homes and 2,300 claims for autos in Tennessee. Spokesman Bill Wright placed the value of State Farm claims alone at $29.5 million.
Seven people were killed Sunday in surrounding Morgan County by a F3-rated tornado, with winds up to 200 mph, that cut a path four miles long and up to a half-mile wide. Five of the victims died in Mossy Grove.
Debris burns in the foreground as people clean up from Sunday's tornado in Mossy Grove, Tenn. Mossy Grove was among the hardest hit by the spate of tornadoes that tore through the region. President Bush on Wednesday declared 16 counties disaster areas.
The latest fatality came Tuesday, when a 42-year-old man died at a Jackson hospital of injuries he suffered when a tornado destroyed the doublewide mobile home he shared with relatives.
Allbaugh and Gov. Don Sundquist arrived by helicopter in a field next to New Life Apostolic Church, where 80 parishioners had gathered for Sunday night services when the storm struck.
The church was damaged, but no one inside was hurt.
Volunteer contractors helped clear debris as donations arrived from around the region :quot; clothes, kerosene heaters and so much bottled water that "if the Mississippi River runs dry, we have water," said David Acres, missions director with the Big Emory Baptist Assn.
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