Storms ripped across the South over the past few days. Tornadoes and downed trees killed dozens of people. Now, as the weather improves, rescuers and residents are taking stock of what happened as the cleanup continues.
MICHELE NORRIS, Host: But first, NPR's Kathy Lohr reports on efforts to measure the extent of the damage and to pick up the pieces.</s>KATHY LOHR: Governor Bev Perdue towards several of the hardest hit areas today, and she says she reached out to President Obama, who sent in federal assessment teams within 20 hours after the storm hit.</s>BEV PERDUE: They are active across North Carolina today and they will be today, tonight, tomorrow. And then we hope by Thursday we'll know the first rough estimates on loss of life and property both to individuals and to businesses.</s>KATHY LOHR: The governor declared a state of emergency after tornados shattered homes and businesses, uprooted trees and whipped down power lines. One tornado stayed on the ground for 62 miles from Sanford to Raleigh in Wake County. Commission chair Paul Coble told reporters this afternoon some of the damage is not readily apparent until you take a second look.</s>PAUL COBLE: If you stand on the outside of the fire station, it looks like there's nothing really wrong with it. But you walk inside and you look up and the roof has come apart. And you can look up and you see that all the struts and structure has been torn up, all the wiring. It really does look like the tornado just stopped, reached out, picked the roof up and then slammed it right back down on top of the building. It's incredible.</s>KATHY LOHR: Coble says damage estimates may be as high as $100 million in this county alone. This type of storm is not unusual during the springtime, but it was the deadliest storm to batter North Carolina since 1984. There are reports of more than 60 tornados hitting the state Saturday. Greg Carbin with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says some funnel clouds were likely counted more than once.</s>GREG CARBIN: Some of them were probably on the ground for 50 miles or so. You may end up with 40 reports along that track and those are now being counted as preliminary tornado reports. But in the end result, it's going to be one tornado. So the numbers will come down again. That's still going to be quite a few tornados in one day for eastern North Carolina.</s>KATHY LOHR: Carbin says many of the fatalities occurred in trailers, despite advanced warning that this was a particularly dangerous storm. It turns out, more than 14 percent of North Carolina's homes are trailers, which just can't stand up to these strong winds.</s>GREG CARBIN: And it is unusual to see the large toll that we saw, especially during the daylight hours. It's a little sobering. And we have to, you know, try to reach as many people as we can with the word that danger is on the way. But sometimes people are just not in the position to receive that information.</s>KATHY LOHR: Kathy Lohr, NPR News, Atlanta.