Thousands without heat, water after tornadoes kill dozens in US

Mayfield, Kentucky: Residents of Kentucky counties where tornadoes killed dozens of people could be without heat, water or electricity in frigid temperatures for weeks or longer, state officials warned Monday, as the toll of damage and deaths came into clearer focus in five states slammed by the swarm of twisters.

Kentucky authorities said the sheer level of destruction was hindering their ability to tally the devastation from Friday night's storms.

At least 64 people were killed in the state alone, though officials believe the death toll will be lower than initially feared because many more people escaped a candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, than first thought.

As searches continued for those still missing, efforts also turned to repairing the power grid, sheltering those whose homes were destroyed and delivering drinking water and other supplies.

We're not going to let any of our families go homeless," Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said in announcing that lodges in state parks were being used to provide shelter.

In Mayfield, one of the hardest-hit towns, those who survived faced a high in the 50s and a low below freezing Monday without any utilities.

Our infrastructure is so damaged. We have no running water. Our water tower was lost. Our wastewater management was lost and there's no natural gas in the city. So we have nothing to rely on there, Mayfield Mayor Kathy Stewart O'Nan said on CBS Mornings.

So that is purely survival at this point for so many of our people.

Across the state, about 26,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, according to poweroutage.us, including nearly all of those in Mayfield.

More than 10,000 homes and businesses have no water, and another 17,000 are under boil-water advisories, Kentucky Emergency Management Director Michael Dossett told reporters.

Kentucky was the worst hit by far in the cluster of twisters across several states, remarkable because they came at a time of year when cold weather normally limits tornadoes.

At least 64 people died in the state, Beshear said Monday, offering the first specific count of the dead. There were at least another 14 deaths in Illinois, Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri.

Still, Beshear warned that it could take days longer to pin down the full death toll, with door-to-door searches impossible in some places.

With this amount of damage and rubble, it may be a week or even more before we have a final count on the number of lost lives, the governor said.

Initially as many as 70 people were feared dead in the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory, but the company said Sunday that eight deaths were confirmed and eight people remained missing, while more than 90 others had been located.

Bob Ferguson, a spokesman for the company, said that many employees gathered in a tornado shelter, then left the site and were hard to reach because phone service was out.

Debris from destroyed buildings and shredded trees covered the ground in Mayfield, a city of about 10,000 in western Kentucky. Twisted sheet metal, downed power lines and wrecked vehicles lined the streets. Windows were blown out and roofs torn off the buildings that were still standing.

Four twisters hit Kentucky in all, including one with an extraordinarily long path of about 200 miles (322 kilometres), authorities said.

In addition to the deaths in Kentucky, the tornadoes also killed at least six people in Illinois, where an Amazon distribution centre in Edwardsville was hit; four in Tennessee; two in Arkansas, where a nursing home was destroyed and the governor said workers shielded residents with their own bodies; and two in Missouri.

Not far from Mayfield, 67 people spent Sunday night at a church serving as a shelter in Wingo, and 40 more were expected to arrive Monday. Organizers were working to find a mobile outdoor shower facility and a laundry truck, expecting many of the displaced to need a long-term place to stay. Volunteers were scrambling to meet more immediate needs, too.

I've got two that need undergarments, one said.

Do we have socks? Lifelong Mayfield resident Cynthia Gargis, 51, is staying with her daughter after the storm tore off the front of her apartment and sucked out almost everything inside, including her Christmas tree. She came to the shelter to offer help and visit with friends who lost their homes.

I don't know, I don't see how we'll ever get over this, she said. It won't ever be the same.

On the outskirts of Dawson Springs, another town devastated by the storms, homes were reduced to rubble and trees toppled, littering the landscape for a span of at least a mile.

It looks a bomb went off. It's just completely destroyed in areas, said Jack Whitfield Jr., the Hopkins County judge-executive.

He estimated that more than 60% of the town, including hundreds of homes, was beyond repair."

A full recovering is going to take years, he said.

Tim Morgan, a volunteer chaplain for the Hopkins County Sheriff's Department, said he's seen the aftermath of tornadoes and hurricanes before, but nothing like this.

Just absolute decimation. There is an entire hillside of houses that are 3 feet tall now, he said.