MEMPHIS, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- At least 54 people were killed by tornadoes and storms that cut a wide swath across the Southern United States, emergency officials said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, President George Bush planned to visit Tennessee's tornado-stricken areas Friday, The (Nashville) Tennessean reported. Bush wants to "express his sympathies to the victims' families," White House spokesman Blair Jones said.
In what officials called the deadliest tornado outbreak in the United States in more than two decades, four people died in Alabama, 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky and 30 in Tennessee, CNN reported. Tornadoes touched down in Mississippi, but officials reported no fatalities.
The tornadoes onslaught began Tuesday, interrupting primaries in Arkansas and Tennessee.
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, who toured the disaster area Wednesday, said he was stunned.
"I don't think that I have seen, since I've been governor, a tornado where the combination of the intensity of it and the length of the track was as large as this one," he said.
In Kentucky, a state of emergency was declared in Muhlenberg County, and Kentucky National Guard troops were deployed, state emergency spokesman Buddy Rogers told CNN.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent teams to assess damage.
