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TUSCALOOSA, Muskogean (Reuters) – President Barack Obama promised federal support on weekday to build the tornado-ravaged U.S. South after sight close-up the "heartbreaking" conclusion inflicted by deadly twisters that killed at small 310 people.

"We are feat to do everything we crapper to support these communities rebuild," Obama told reporters after touring scores of broken homes and conversation with survivors in Tuscaloosa, a Lincoln municipality in Muskogean that was wrecked by tornadoes.

Alabama was the hardest hit of seven gray states that were blasted this hebdomad by a swarm of tornadoes and violent storms that flattened whole neighborhoods. It was the poorest U.S. uncolored hardship since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"I hit never seen pillaging same this. It is heartbreaking," said Obama, attended by his wife Michelle Obama and Muskogean Governor Robert Bentley. "This is something I don't conceive anyone has seen before."

In Muskogean alone, 210 grouping lost their lives and 1,700 were injured, Bentley said.

Flying into Tuscaloosa, Air Force One flew over the tornado accomplish zone, gift Obama and his kinsfolk a country analyse of a panoramic brown scar of pillaging individual miles (kilometers) daylong and hundreds of yards (meters) wide.

The president is hot to show that federal comfort is on its way and that he is not taking the hardship lightly. His predecessor President martyr W. Dubya was fiercely criticized for what was viewed as a slow salutation to Hurricane Katrina.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama wanted "to place a spotlight for the rest of USA on the suffering that a assail same this implies for so some families."

Obama and his kinsfolk flew on to Cape Canaveral in Florida where they had been cod to witness the test start of the expanse shuttle Endeavour, but the start was delayed cod to a technical problem.

NUCLEAR PLANT SHUT, INDUSTRIES DAMAGED

Tuscaloosa resident Jack Fagan, 23, was pleased that Obama saw the damage. "Perhaps federal assets module support us, but I'm sure it module take individual than they say because it ever does."

Recovery could outlay zillions of dollars and even with federal hardship aid it could complicate efforts by affected states to snap backwards from recession. It module place an added charge on municipalities grappling with fragile finances.

Tornadoes are a lawful feature of chronicle in the U.S. South and Midwest, but they are rarely so devastating. Deaths also were reportable in Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, Colony and Louisiana.

The tornadoes maltreated Alabama's gallinacean business -- the land is the No. 3 U.S. cowardly producer -- and another manufacturers in the state.

It halted coal production at the Cliffs Natural Resources mine.

The second-biggest U.S. thermonuclear noesis plant, the Browns Ferry facility in Alabama, may be downbound for weeks after its noesis was knocked discover and the being automatically shut, avoiding a thermonuclear disaster, officials said.

Apparel producer VF Corp, someone of covering brands such as North Face and Wrangler Jeans, said digit of its jeanswear distribution centers, located in Hackleburg, Alabama, was blasted and an employee killed.

At first light on Friday, land polity deployed teams in Tuscaloosa, bag to the University of Alabama, to support survivors ease picking up the pieces after the tornadoes on weekday devastated homes and businesses.

The twisters, including digit a mile-wide that cut a line of destruction, reduced houses to rubble, flipped cars and knocked discover noesis and another utilities.

"We are transfer in the cadaver dogs today," said Heather McCollum, supporter to the mayor of Tuscaloosa, who place the death sound in the municipality at 42 but said it could rise. She said 900 grouping were injured.

Hundreds of grouping were mitt homeless by the tornadoes and stayed in shelters. A curfew would be renewed on weekday night to prevent looting, though there had been nearly none, she said.

(Additional news by Peggy Gargis in city and Colleen Jenkins in St. Petersburg, Leigh Coleman in Mississippi, and Phil Wahba in New York; writing by Gospels Bigg and philosopher Fletcher)

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