OKLAHOMA CITY ? The barrage of twisters that ripped across the nation’s midsection marked the most active week of tornadoes on record, meteorologists said Saturday as they sized up a wave of storms that left 44 people dead from Kansas to Georgia.

The deadly tornadoes began early in the week in Missouri, Kansas and Tennessee, followed by two rounds of twisters in the Oklahoma City area Thursday and Friday. Storms combined with straight-line wind, lightning and floods as they reduced hundreds of homes and businesses to splinters and piles of loose bricks.

“We just don’t have a down day; that’s what’s been very unusual,” said Rich Thompson, lead forecaster at the Storm Prediction Center of the National Weather Service in Norman, Okla. “It just doesn’t seem to stop.”

Storms pelted several states on Saturday, although they weren’t as severe as some of the earlier turbulent weather.

At least one tornado touched down in Indiana. Torrential downpours flooded streets and fields and forced the postponement Saturday’s qualification for the Indianapolis 500.

A storm system also moved through Missouri, spawning tornadoes that damaged outbuildings, overturned cars and downed power lines. No injuries or deaths were reported.

More than 100 people were injured in the Oklahoma City area by two tornadoes that struck Thursday and Friday night. But only a few were hospitalized Saturday, and only one remained in critical condition.

President Bush issued a disaster declaration Saturday for Oklahoma, clearing the way for federal aid. Earlier in the week, he did the same for tornado-battered parts of Tennessee, Kansas and Missouri.

More than 300 homes and 35 businesses were destroyed in Oklahoma alone and the state Insurance Commissioner’s Office gave a preliminary damage estimate of $100 million. Utility crews strung new power lines in an effort to restore electrical service to more than 10,000 homes and businesses. About 8,300 homes were without power Saturday evening.

While tornadoes are common in May, the number of them reported in the first part of this month has been extraordinary, said Dan McCarthy, warning coordination meteorologist at the Storm Prediction Center.

By Saturday, about 300 tornadoes had been reported since the start of May, about 100 more than the most recent comparable rash, in 1999. Until now, that 1999 barrage had been the record for any 10-day period since record-keeping started in the 1950s, McCarthy said.