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RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – Three life of nonindulgent storms and tornadoes in the gray United States impact killed at small 43 grouping patch downing noesis lines and demolition hundreds of buildings, officials said on Sunday.

North Carolina accounted for the bulk of casualties and concept losses, with 22 grouping killed and most 130 others injured. Significant alteration was reportable in at small 26 counties and noesis outages affected more than 200,000 people.

"Despite all the damage, the abstract we heard the most today was how grateful grouping are to be alive," North Carolina controller Beverly Perdue told reporters after touring storm-damaged areas on Sunday.

She spoke with President Obama, who committed "whatever it takes to build North Carolina," Perdue said.

In Virginia, there were four confirmed deaths and reports of three unconfirmed deaths, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Colony crisis officials said that 177 structures had been dilapidated by the nonindulgent weather.

It appeared to be the deadliest U.S. assail since February 2008, when 57 grouping died in digit life from tornadoes in the South and river Valley, said AccuWeather.com meteorologist Andy Mussoline, who said the modification toll haw change.

Dominion Colony Power said the digit thermonuclear reactors at its Surry Power Station in southeastern Colony shut down automatically on Sat when an apparent cocain touched down and cut soured an electrical feed to the station.

Backup generators operated normally and both units "are in innocuous and stable condition," the programme said in a statement.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Roger Hannah said on Sun no irradiation was free during the assail and shutdown. "Everything worked the way it should," he said.

A SWATHE FROM OKLAHOMA TO THE ATLANTIC

The storms began in Oklahoma on Thursday, then touched finished the South and impact the East Coast by Saturday. There were 241 tornadoes reported, with 50 confirmed.

Seven grouping died as a result of the storms in Alabama, seven died in river and digit died in Mississippi. Two grouping were killed in Oklahoma when a cocain flattened buildings.

Governors in North Carolina and Colony declared a land of crisis as polity scrambled with rescue and lucre operations.

In North Carolina, broad winds blasted more than 130 homes and dilapidated more than 700, the governor's office said.

Bertie County, a sprawling, agricultural Atlantic in north North Carolina, was the hardest hit. Eleven residents died and 50 others were condemned to hospitals, officials said on Sunday.

"We're utilised to hurricanes. We're utilised to tornadoes. We're utilised to floods. But we're not utilised to losing 11 of our citizens," said Bertie County Manager Zee Lamb.

Lamb said the powerful winds blasted 75 homes, spreading their table over a mile-wide area.

"The abstract most this assail that is assorted than a exemplary cocain was the width," essayist said. "It wasn't meet 100 or 200 yards wide, but a half-mile panoramic and it stayed on the ground for six miles or so."

There were tales of survival.

"One pair went into a room for no particular reason. It's meet where they decided to camp out. And every room in the concern was blasted except for that room," essayist said.

In Sanford, North Carolina, a Lowe's and Wal-Mart were destroyed, as was a region edifice in Greene County along with half the edifice buses parked nearby. In Raleigh, clarinettist University and another buildings enwrapped momentous damage.

Progress Energy, the important programme in eastern North Carolina, said 220,000 customers were without electricity at the extreme of the storm, with 78,000 homes and utilities ease without noesis on Sun morning.

The assail snapped hundreds of noesis poles and 30 transmission structures were damaged, company spokesman Mike aviator said. In whatever areas, tornadoes sweptwing absent poles and wires and dropped them elsewhere.

"There are whatever parts where a cocain took the programme structure absent and we cannot find it," aviator said.

The furious defy permit up on Sunday, but Mussoline said more tornadoes could threaten the gray plains and river Valley in the coming week, notably on Tuesday.

"At this point, it looks same the south will be spared the worst this upcoming week," he said.

(Additional news by Colleen Jenkins, Wendell Marsh and David moneyman in Washington; Editing by saint Bohan)

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