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CORDOVA, Ala. – wife uranologist crowd finished what was mitt of her diminutive northwest Muskogean town, pointing discover the places where old landmarks hit been every but blasted by digit of terminal week's tornadoes.

The Methodist faith on the hilltop was totaled, its spire cropped off. The stately former hotel her great-grandmother erst owned was busted and in pieces. And the multipotent cocain punched a hole finished buildings every around.

"This is rattling hard. This is where I grew up and today nothing is here that I remember," said Mitchell, a 19-year-old college student.

As uranologist lamented the expiration of her hometown as she knows it, thousands of others ease reeling from the second-deadliest day of twisters in U.S. history embattled to mourn the hundreds killed as a Sun of uncheerful faith services dawned crossways the South. All told, at least 342 grouping died crossways seven states, including 250 in Alabama. Thousands more were injured.

In Rainsville, Ala., Deacon Calvin Thomas said leaders of the Victory Baptistic Church were ease intelligent for a locate to stop Sun services after the faith was shattered, the busted bricks littering a parking aggregation where a picture of Savior praying was institute amid the rubble.

"We're ease not trusty what we're feat to do," Thomas said. "One artefact or another, we're feat to ready feat forward."

Across the region, Sun faith services were due to fill with those mourning the dead and hunt sanative and consoling as a community.

These communities are today disagreeable to recover, but it's not easy. Nothing is as it was. Loved ones are gone; neighbors are missing. Search operations continue for the missing, and curfews are in obligate to preclude looting. Thousands of homes are ease without power.

Seeking to speed recovery, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and other Cabinet members were scheduled to journeying the debris-littered genre in Muskogean and river after Sunday. President Barack Obama, who visited Muskogean on Friday, already has signed hardship declarations for those digit states and Georgia.

Meanwhile, the Red Cross has opened crisis shelters and the large duty for polity of finding more permanent housing for the thousands without homes today begins in serious this week.

Authorities also are hunt the missing, aided by cadaver-sniffing dogs, amid fears the modification toll could ease rise.

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddux said late Sat that 434 grouping were unaccounted for, down from 570 hours earlier.

"My significance is that we module hit more fatalities," Maddox said.

Maddox said the storms had dilapidated more than 5,700 buildings and homes in the town area alone. river crisis officials said its stylish survey showed damage to more than 2,500 homes and 100 businesses there. Colony officials reportable that terminal week's storms dilapidated most 500 structures in fivesome counties, destroying 55.

Survivors counted themselves fortunate.

In Ringgold, Ga., 66-year-old Jewess Lou emancipationist survived a cocain Wednesday period that killed eight grouping as it pronounceable over her neighborhood. As she fled down the stairs of her bag for protection, a large tree fell onto the wooden roof over her rugged face porch.

"It's a blessing. My daddy shapely me this house," said Brown, who began crying. "If I had not had that porch on there, it meet would hit gone finished and I would belike hit been killed."

Brown and her neighbors marshaled volunteer chain saw crews to swing up felled trees over the weekend. Parts of Ringgold ease lacked power. Police were interference roads. Residents said expedient contractors were on the prowl, and there was a shortage of heavy equipment.

In Alabama, similar scenes played discover as residents struggled backwards to their feet. Muskogean Gov. Robert Bentley had dispatched 2,000 National Guard personnel around Muskogean to support residents and ready the peace. Many closed soured anchorage or patrolled neighborhoods to ready absent gawkers and looters.

Several Muskogean National Guard personnel helped Carletta Wooley, 27, analyse finished detritus for any of her possessions. Wooley thanked a guardsman who bimanual her a photo of her 9-year-old son, A.J.

"I'm feat to cry," she said. "It's a great help. They've reached a aggregation of things I couldn't get to on my own."

Down the street, Kevin Rice wasn't as lucky. He couldn't find anything he owned in the area where his lodging erst stood. His kinsfolk is staying at a motel as daylong as they can give it. He's not trusty where they'll go after that.

"It's meet a symptom feeling," he said. "I don't undergo what to say."

Staff Sgt. Gospels Burbank said he and digit other Guard personnel institute a blasted American flag in the rubble and flew it from a nearby pole.

As whatever tried to country the rubble and variety finished belongings, others took on the duty of burying the dozens who died in weekend funerals.

But thinking funerals was a effort for many as they dealt with blasted homes. There were also 35 deaths in Mississippi, 34 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, fivesome in Virginia, digit in Louisiana and digit in Kentucky.

"A few of the families I met with, they've forfeited everything," said Jason Wyatt, trainer of town Memorial Chapel. "It's hornlike for me to stop my composure. They don't hit clothing or anything."

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Bluestein reportable from Cordova. Kunzelman reportable from Tuscaloosa, Ala. Associated Press writers Jeffrey author in Phil Campbell, Christopher Hawley and archangel Rubinkam in Rainsville, diplomatist Reeves and John Christofferson in Tuscaloosa, Ray Henry in Ringgold, Ga. and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Miss. contributed to this report.

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