Dozens of tornadoes ripped through the South, flattening homes and businesses and killing at least 248 people in six states in the deadliest outbreak in nearly 40 years. 
 
 Residents survey the destruction after a tornado hit Pratt City, Ala. just north of downtown Birmingham, Ala., on Wednesday, April 27, 2011. A wave of severe storms laced with tornadoes strafed the South... (Associated Press) 
 
 A tornado has flattened Pleasant Grove, Ala., a subdivision of Mountain Grove, Thursday, April 28. 2011. Dozens of tornadoes spawned by a powerful storm system wiped out entire towns across a wide swath... (Associated Press) 
 
 Tamisha Cunningham, who suffered a leg injury when her home was destroyed, looks over the damage while waiting for medical care, near Athens, Ala., Wednesday, April 27, 2011. Homes in the area were completely... (Associated Press) 
 
 First responders carry an elderly woman away after they rescued her from the rubble of her home, after a tornado struck Wednesday, April 27, 2011 in Phil Campbell, Ala. (AP Photo/TimesDaily, Daniel Giles) (Associated Press) 
 
 Concrete steps lead to remains of a tornado demolished mobile home in Preston, Miss., Wednesday, April 27, 2011. The home and one next to it were blown about 100 feet away into a cow pasture. Three related... (Associated Press) 
 
 A tornado moves through Tuscaloosa, Ala. Wednesday, April 27, 2011. A wave of severe storms laced with tornadoes strafed the South on Wednesday, killing at least 16 people around the region and splintering... (Associated Press) 
 
 As day broke Thursday, people in hard-hit Alabama surveyed flattened, debris-strewn neighborhoods and told of pulling bodies from rubble after the storms passed Wednesday afternoon and evening. 
 
 "It happened so fast it was unbelievable," said Jerry Stewart, a 63-year-old retired firefighter who was picking through the remains of his son's wrecked home in Pleasant Grove, a suburb of Birmingham. "They said the storm was in Tuscaloosa and it would be here in 15 minutes. And before I knew it, it was here." 
 
 He and his wife, along with their daughter and two grandchildren, survived by hiding under their front porch. Friends down the street who did the same weren't so lucky _ Stewart said he pulled out the bodies of two neighbors whose home was ripped off its foundation. 
 
 Alabama's state emergency management agency said it had confirmed 162 deaths, while there were 32 in Mississippi, 32 in Tennessee, 13 in Georgia, eight in Virginia and one in Kentucky. 
 
 President Barack Obama said he would travel to Alabama on Friday to view storm damage and meet with the governor and affected families. 
 
 The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said it received 137 tornado reports into Wednesday night. 
 
 Some of the worst damage was in Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 that is home to the University of Alabama. Neighborhoods there were leveled by a massive tornado caught on video by a tower-mounted news camera that barreled through late Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 "When I looked back, I just saw trees and stuff coming by," said Mike Whitt, a resident at DCH Regional Medical Center who ran from the hospital's parking deck when the wind started swirling and he heard a roar. 
 
 On Thursday morning, he walked through the neighborhood next to the hospital, home to a mix of students and townspeople, looking at dozens of homes without roofs. Household items were scattered on the ground _ a drum, running shoes, insulation, towels, and a shampoo bottle. Streets were impassable, the pavement strewn with trees, pieces of houses and cars with their windows blown out. 
 
 Dr. David Hinson was working at the hospital when the tornado hit. He and his wife had to walk several blocks to get to their house, which was destroyed. Several houses down, he helped pull three students from the rubble. One was dead and two were badly injured. He and others used pieces of debris as makeshift stretchers to carry them to an ambulance. 
 
 "We just did the best we could to get them out and get them stabilized and get them to help," he said. "I don't know what happened to them." 
 
 Back from an aerial tour Thursday morning, Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox said the tornado tore a streak as many as 4 miles long and a half-mile wide of "utter destruction." There are at least 36 people dead in the city's police jurisdiction, and searches continue for the missing. 
 
 "We have neighborhoods that have been basically removed from the map," he said. 
 
 Because the city's emergency management building was destroyed, authorities are using Bryant-Denny Stadium at the University of Alabama as a command post. 
 
 University officials said there didn't appear to be significant damage on campus, and dozens of students and locals were staying at a 125-bed shelter in the campus recreation center. 
 
 The storm system spread destruction from Texas to New York, where dozens of roads were flooded or washed out. The governors of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia issued emergency declarations for parts of their states. 
 
 Dave Imy, a meteorologist with the prediction service, said the deaths were the most since a tornado outbreak killed 315 people in 1974. 
 
 In Alabama, where as many as a million people were without power, Gov. Robert Bentley said 2,000 national guard troops had been activated and were helping to search devastated areas for people still missing. He said the National Weather Service and forecasters did a good job of alerting people, but there is only so much that can be done to deal with powerful tornadoes a mile wide. 
 
 Obama said he had spoken with Bentley and approved his request for emergency federal assistance. 
 
 "Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this devastation, and we commend the heroic efforts of those who have been working tirelessly to respond to this disaster," Obama said in a statement. 
 
 The storms came on the heels of another system that killed 10 people in Arkansas and one in Mississippi earlier this week. Less than two weeks earlier, a smaller batch of twisters raced through Alabama, touching off warning sirens, damaging businesses and downing power lines in Tuscaloosa, but there were no deaths there then. 
 
 In Kemper County, Miss., in the east-central part of the state, sisters Florrie Green and Maxine McDonald, and their sister-in-law Johnnie Green, all died in a mobile home that was destroyed by a storm. 
 
 "They were thrown into those pines over there," Mary Green, Johnnie Green's daughter-in-law, said, pointing to a wooded area. "They had to go look for their bodies." 
 
 In Smithville in northeastern Mississippi, the police station, post office, city hall, an industrial park with several furniture manufacturing facilities and a grocery store were among dozens of buildings ripped apart. A church was cut in half, and pieces of tin were wrapped high around the legs of a blue water tower. 
 
 Jessica Monaghan, 24, walked through the wreckage with her 9-month-old son, Slade Scott, strapped to her back, and the baby's father, 23-year-old Tyler Scott, by her side. 
 
 Their house was still standing, though the home belonging to Tyler Scott's mother was flattened. He was at work _ he's a firefighter in nearby Tupelo _ and Monaghan was at home watching TV when broadcasters warned the town could be hit within 10 minutes. By then, she said, the storm was there about that time. 
 
 "The baby was already in the closet. I grabbed the cat and got in the closet, too," Monaghan said. "You could just feel the pressure. It really was like a freight train." 
 
 And in Pleasant Grove, Samantha Nail surveyed the damage in the blue-collar subdivision where hers was the only home still intact. The storm slammed heavy pickup trucks into ditches and obliterated tidy brick houses, leaving behind a mess of mattresses, electronics and children's toys scattered across a grassy plain where dozens used to live. 
 
 "We were in the bathroom holding on to each other and holding on to dear life," Nail said. "If it wasn't for our concrete walls, our home would be gone like the rest of them." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Reeves reported from Tuscaloosa. Associated Press Writers Holbrook Mohr in Smithville, Miss.; Anna McFall and John Zenor in Montgomery; Meg Kinnard in Colombia, S.C.; Bill Fuller and Alan Sayre in New Orleans; Dorie Turner in Atlanta; and Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn., contributed to this report. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Tornado video - first clip courtesy Chris England/Crimson Tide Productions 
 
 The Alabama city of Tuscaloosa has been among the hardest-hit by fierce storms which have battered the southern United States. 
 
 A massive tornado - some estimates put it at a mile wide - tore through the city on Wednesday. Meteorologists say it could have been the worst in the state's history. 
 
 As the twister's approach was broadcast on local television, one presenter on WMBA told viewers: "That is something that you pray that you never, ever ever see." 
 
 The full scale of the destruction in Tuscaloosa is not yet clear, but more than 16 people are known to have been killed. 
 
 Even on the ground floor of our two-storey apartment building, we could hear the wildness above us Will Nevin, Tuscaloosa resident 
 
 The twister "cut a path of destruction deep into the heart of the city," said Mayor Walter Maddox. 
 
 "What we faced today was massive damage on a scale we have not seen in Tuscaloosa in quite some time," Mr Maddox told reporters. 
 
 "We have hundreds of homes and businesses destroyed and hundreds more damaged." 
 
 'Roof flying off' 
 
 The city's hospital is running on emergency generators after a nearby electricity substation was knocked out by the storm. 
 
 But staff said they had still taken in more than 100 patients and were operating in full disaster mode. 
 
 "All the stuff you need to be a hospital are fine: just not necessarily all the things you need to run an office," spokesman Brad Fisher told Tuscaloosa News. 
 
 Image caption Several towns were hit by powerful tornadoes, including Tuscaloosa in Alabama, where Mayor Walter Maddox said a twister had "cut a path of destruction deep into the heart of the city". In pictures: Deadly US storms 
 
 Police stations and the offices of the Emergency Management Agency (EMA) were also damaged. 
 
 Grocery manager Mike Honeysutt described cowering with his customers at the back of the shop while the storm passed overhead. 
 
 He had been monitoring its progress on the radio until he saw it through the window, bearing down on his shop. 
 
 "The power went out and the building started shaking," he told the Associated Press. 
 
 "The windows were shaking and part of the roof was flying off the building - the windows came into the front and then the wind started blowing stuff off of the shelves. 
 
 Will Nevin told local newspaper the Birmingham News: "My wife and I were watching the weather coverage until the monster was right up on us." 
 
 "Then it was the mad dash to the bathroom where the lights flickered, pulsed and finally gave up. 
 
 "Even on the ground floor of our two-storey apartment building, we could hear the wildness above us." 
 
 Student James DiNiro told the BBC the damage in the city was comparable to "photos from cities in World War II." 
 
 "Me and a few of my friends helped pull a woman with a very severe head wound out of the rubble of her house and get her to the hospital," he said. 
 
 "Her situation, like many others, appears grave." 
 
 There was relief when a child was found alive beneath one pile of debris and was carried away by firefighters. 
 
 But officials have warned that with more storms forecast in the coming days, the danger is not yet over for the town.
– A wave of tornado-spawning storms ripped through six states yesterday, killing at least 269 people and flattening buildings. Some 180 people died in Alabama alone, many of those in college-town Tuscaloosa, where a mile-wide tornado tore through the city's downtown, the AP reports. There were 33 casualties in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 14 in Georgia, eight in Virginia, and one in Kentucky. President Obama has spoken with Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and approved his request for federal emergency assistance, including search and rescue teams. Tuscaloosa's mayor estimates "hundreds of homes and businesses (were) destroyed and hundreds more damaged" around the University of Alabama campus, reports the BBC, and the city's infrastructure has been devastated. "What we faced today was massive damage on a scale we have not seen in Tuscaloosa in quite some time," he told reporters.