Tag Archives: United States

Face masks may be ‘new normal’ in post-virus life as U.S. prepares gradual reopening

By Maria Caspani and Jessica Resnick-Ault

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in the United States approached 31,000 on Wednesday as governors began cautiously preparing Americans for a post-virus life that would likely include public face coverings as the “new normal.”

The governors of Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania each issued orders or recommendations that residents wear face masks as they emerge from isolation in the coming weeks.

“If you are going to be in public and you cannot maintain social distancing, then have a mask, and put that mask on,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.

Similar orders were imposed in New Jersey and Los Angeles last week and face coverings were recommended by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly on Tuesday.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has said residents across the nation’s most-populous state would likely be wearing masks in public for some time to come.

“We are going to be getting back to normal; it will be a new normal,” Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said, echoing a phrase used by at least two of his fellow governors in recent days.

U.S. Midwest governors were also making plans together to restart their economies, said Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokeswoman for Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.

In Michigan, hundreds of cars flooded the streets around the state Capitol in Lansing on Wednesday to protest Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders, some of the strictest in the country.

Some protesters, in the demonstration organized by conservative and pro-President Donald Trump groups, left their cars to gather on the lawn in front of the Capitol building, many of them not wearing masks or practicing social distancing.

TOLL ON HEALTHCARE STAFF

As of Wednesday night, 30,885 people in the United States had died of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, according to a Reuters tally.

That includes more than 4,000 deaths newly attributed to the disease in New York City after health officials revised their counting methods to include “probable,” but unconfirmed, cases.

Healthcare workers have faced unique health threats while working on the front lines trying to tackle the pandemic.

Reuters has identified more than 50 nurses, doctors and medical technicians who have died after being diagnosed with COVID-19 or showing symptoms of it. At least 16 were in New York state.

“The emergency room is like a war zone,” said Raj Aya, whose wife, Madhvi Aya – a physician’s assistant in Brooklyn – was one of the healthcare workers who died in New York.

As the outbreak begins to slow, political leaders have bickered over how and when to begin the process of unwinding unprecedented lockdowns that have damaged the economy and largely confined Americans to their homes.

Washington state Governor Jay Inslee told an afternoon news conference the largest obstacle to a return to normalcy was a shortage of coronavirus tests.

“We simply haven’t had enough test kits – they simply do not exist anywhere in the United States right now,” Inslee said, adding the state had purchased about a million swabs, along with vials and test medium but they were just starting to arrive.

At his daily White House briefing hours later, Trump boasted that the United States had “the most expansive testing system anywhere in the world”. But, he said, testing was a problem for the states and not the federal government.

“We can’t be thinking about a Walmart parking lot,” where some testing is being done, but the states and cities should do that, he said.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday unveiled a $30 billion plan to vastly increase nationwide testing for the coronavirus.

‘ALMOST IN FREE FALL’

Trump, citing data suggesting the peak of new infections had passed, said he would announce guidelines on Thursday for reopening the economy.

The sweeping closures of businesses have left millions of Americans unemployed and store owners struggling to pay rent.

Government data released on Wednesday showed that retail sales dropped by 8.7% in March, the biggest decline since tracking began in 1992. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

In addition, output at U.S. factories declined by the most since 1946 as the pandemic fractured supply chains.

“The economy is almost in free fall,” said Sung Won Sohn, a business economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

The United States, with the world’s third-largest population, has now suffered the greatest number of reported fatalities from the coronavirus, ahead of Italy and Spain.

Globally, the number of infections has crossed the 2 million mark and over 136,000 people have died, a Reuters tally shows.

The pathogen emerged last year in China.

Trump said on Wednesday his government was trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a lab in Wuhan, China, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Beijing “needs to come clean” on what they know. The official death toll released by the Chinese government stands at about 3,600.

The source of the virus remains a mystery. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that U.S. intelligence indicated the coronavirus likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in a laboratory in China, but there was no certainty either way.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne, Lucia Mutikani, Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey, Maria Caspani, Lisa Shumaker, Gabriella Borter, Peter Szekely, Kristina Cooke, Jessica Resnick-Ault, Sharon Bernstein, Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Cynthia Osterman, Peter Cooney and Himani Sarkar)

Factbox: Latest on the spread of the coronavirus around the world

(Reuters) – Reported cases of the coronavirus crossed 2.07 million globally and more than 138,400 people have died, according to a Reuters tally as of 1400 GMT on Thursday.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

* For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread, open https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.

* For a U.S.-focused tracker with state-by-state and county map, open https://tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T in an external browser.

AMERICAS

* U.S. President Donald Trump plans to announce new guidelines to reopen the economy on Thursday, despite concerns from health experts, governors and business leaders about a resurgence in cases without more testing and protocols in place.

* U.S. defense secretary said he believed China’s leaders have been misleading and opaque about the outbreak and does not trust that they are being truthful even now.

* Mexico’s government said its health experts have recommended the country extend its current measures until May 30.

* Mexico could force the closure of companies in non-essential sectors if they refuse to suspend operations during a state of emergency.

* Haiti will reopen its key textile industry next week.

* A two-month-old baby born to Warao indigenous refugees from Venezuela has tested positive, the mayor’s office in the Brazilian city of Manaus said.

EUROPE

* Europe is in eye of the storm, with the number of cases nearing a million, and should move with extreme caution when considering easing lockdowns, the WHO’s regional director said.

* Spain’s national death toll exceeded 19,000, but figures from the region of Catalonia indicated the real total could be several thousand higher.

* Britain’s outbreak is starting to peak but it is too early to lift the lockdown, its health minister said.

* Austria plans to test every retirement home resident as it expands efforts to measure the pandemic’s spread.

* Hungary is extending lockdown measures by one week from Saturday.

* The Swiss government will start a gradual relaxation of restrictions from April 27.

* A study of Dutch blood donors found that around 3% have developed antibodies against the virus, an indication of what percentage of the population may have already had the disease.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* China reported fewer imported cases on Thursday, but said locally transmitted infections rose, with the capital Beijing seeing new local cases for the first time in more than three weeks.

* Japan’s prime minister expanded a state of emergency to include the entire country and said the government was considering cash payouts for all.

* South Korea’s ruling party won an absolute majority in parliamentary elections in a landslide victory propelled by successes in the country’s efforts to contain the virus.

* India charged a Muslim leader with culpable homicide not amounting to murder for holding a gathering last month that authorities say led to a big jump in infections.

* Malaysia approved the use of antigen rapid test kits from South Korea, as it looks to increase its testing among high-risk groups and in places where clusters are detected.

* Indonesia expects the number of cases to peak between May and June with around 95,000 infections, a government adviser said.

* Australia will retain curbs on public movement for at least four more weeks, its prime minister said, dashing speculation the sustained low growth in new cases could spur a quicker return to normal.

* China said the WHO has said there is no evidence that the virus was made in a lab, after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Beijing “needs to come clean” on what they know.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Iran’s official death toll reached 4,869 on Thursday but a parliamentary report said the actual number could be much higher.

* Oman locked down a textile market in a town popular with tourists as the country reported more than 100 new infections to take its count above 1,000.

* Six Gulf Arab states approved Kuwait’s proposal for a common network for food supply safety.

* The Kingdom of Eswatini recorded its first death on Thursday.

* South Africa will allow mines to operate at a capacity of 50% during a nationwide lockdown.

ECONOMIC FALLOUT

* Europe led world stock markets higher as tentative moves to reopen parts of the some of its larger economies and a bounce in oil offset some truly dismal global economic data.

* Hedge fund Elliott Management said global stocks could ultimately lose half of their value from February’s high, according to a letter sent to clients.

* The United States opposes creation of liquidity through issuance of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights as part of the response to the pandemic, U.S. treasury secretary said.

* The Federal Reserve’s program to back emergency government loans to small businesses is “fully operational,” the central bank said.

* Britain’s economy looks set for a record contraction after figures showed retail spending plunged by more than a quarter and one in four firms stopped trading temporarily.

* The Philippine central bank cut its benchmark interest rate for the third time this year, bringing it to a record low of 2.75%.

* China has not seen large-scale exodus of foreign capital amid the outbreak, the commerce ministry said.

* Mexico’s president said the government would provide an additional one million loans to small businesses.

* Russia is set to spend more than 2 trillion roubles ($26.96 billion) on its anti-crisis programme.

(Compiled by Milla Nissi; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

U.S. may need to extend social distancing for virus until 2022, study says

(Reuters) – The United States may need to endure social distancing measures adopted during the coronavirus outbreak until 2022, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The study comes as more than 2,200 people died in the United States from the outbreak on Tuesday, a record, according to a Reuters tally, even as the country debated how to reopen its economy. The overall death toll in the U.S. from the virus stands at more than 28,300 as of Tuesday.

“Intermittent distancing may be required into 2022 unless critical care capacity is increased substantially or a treatment or vaccine becomes available”, the Harvard researchers said in findings published Tuesday in the journal Science.

Giving examples of South Korea and Singapore, the researchers wrote that effective distancing could reduce the strain on healthcare systems and enable contact tracing and quarantine to be feasible.

The study acknowledged that prolonged distancing would most likely have profoundly negative economic, social, and educational consequences.

The study added that even in the case of “apparent elimination”, SARS-CoV-2 surveillance should still be maintained, as a resurgence in contagion may be possible as late as 2024.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that infections had “certainly” not yet peaked. Nearly 2 million people globally have been infected and more than 124,000 have died in the most serious pandemic in a century.

The epicenter has shifted from China, where the virus emerged in December, to the United States, which has now recorded the most deaths.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Taiwan wades into hotly contested Pacific with its own coronavirus diplomacy

By Ben Blanchard

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan waded into the hotly contested politics of the Pacific on Wednesday, donating face masks and thermal cameras to its four diplomatic allies there to combat the coronavirus in a region where China is challenging traditional power the United States.

The small developing nations lie in the highly strategic waters of the Pacific, dominated since World War Two by the United States and its friends, who have been concerned over China’s moves to expand its footprint there.

Democratic Taiwan has faced intense pressure from China, which claims the island as its territory with no right to state-to-state ties, and is bent on wooing away its few allies.

Taiwan has only 15 formal allies left worldwide after losing two Pacific nations, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati, to China in September.

Beijing has ramped up its diplomatic push into the Pacific, pledging virus aid and medical advice.

In its own aid programme, Taiwan has donated 16 million masks to countries around the world.

“We are a very small country, so it’s easier for us to work with Taiwan than mainland China,” Neijon Edwards, the Marshall Islands ambassador to Taiwan, told Reuters at the donation ceremony in Taipei.

China has been too overbearing, she added.

“It’s pressing too much, and it’s been trying to come to the Marshall Islands, several times, but up to this time we haven’t even opened the door yet.”

While the masks presented at the ceremony are going to Taiwan’s Pacific allies, all its 15 global allies are sharing the thermal cameras.

“Today’s ceremony once again shows that Taiwan is taking concrete actions not only to safeguard the health of Taiwanese people but also to contribute to global efforts to contain COVID-19,” said Foreign Minister Joseph Wu.

Though Pacific Island states offer little economically to either China and Taiwan, their support is valued in global forums such as the United Nations and as China seeks to isolate Taiwan.

China has offered to help developing countries including those of the Pacific, and many see Chinese lending as the best bet to develop their economies.

But critics say Chinese loans can lead countries into a “debt trap”, charges China has angrily rejected.

The debt issue was a serious problem and would only lead to the spread of Chinese influence regionwide, said Jarden Kephas, the ambassador of Nauru.

“They will end up dominating or having a lot of say in those countries because of the amount of debt,” he told Reuters, wondering how the money could ever be repaid. “We are not rich countries.”

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

North Korea hacking threatens U.S., other countries, international financial system: U.S. State Department

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. government officials warned on Wednesday about the threat of North Korean hackers, calling particular attention to banking and other finance.

The reason for the advisory – which was jointly issued by the U.S. Departments of State, Treasury, and Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – was unclear. North Korean hackers have long been accused of targeting financial institutions, and the content of the warning appeared to draw on material already in the public domain.

Requests for comment sent to the U.S. agencies were not immediately returned. The North Korean mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

North Korea is alleged to be behind an ambitious, years-long campaign of digital theft, including siphoning tens of millions of dollars in cash from ATMs, carrying out gigantic thefts at major banks, extorting computer users worldwide, and hijacking digital currency exchanges. The global money-grab has been a topic of increasing international concern.

Last year, for example, a U.N. report said that North Korea had generated an estimated $2 billion for its weapons of mass destruction programs using “widespread and increasingly sophisticated” hacking efforts.

In Wednesday’s advisory, U.S. officials said North Korea’s online activities “threaten the United States and countries around the world and, in particular, pose a significant threat to the integrity and stability of the international financial system.”

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert, Tim Ahmann, and Raphael Satter in Washington. Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York. Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

As coronavirus empties streets, speeders hit the gas

By Tina Bellon

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Empty roads in the United States and Europe are tempting drivers to go out and shift into high gear.

From Los Angeles to New York, London and Berlin, coronavirus lockdowns have drained traffic from normally crowded roads. That has opened space for drivers who want to defy police warnings and automated traffic enforcement systems to go racing in the streets. In London and Los Angeles, police said they have clocked drivers zooming down streets at over 100 miles an hour(160 km/h).

Drivers are posting videos on social media to boast of races on empty roads in Mexico and the U.S. states of Arizona and Texas. In addition to the thrill of speeding, some drivers overestimate their abilities and falsely believe that empty roads provide safety, according to police officials.

Vehicle miles traveled, a standard industry metric to measure vehicle volume and trip distances, has dropped in every U.S. county as of early April, according to data by StreetLight Data, a transportation analytics firm.

For a graphic, click here: https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/AUTOS-TRAFFIC/qmypmyxjpra/TRAFFIC.jpg

At the same time, average speeds measured during the first week of April increased significantly in the five largest U.S. metropolitan areas.

According to data by transportation analytics firm INRIX, the average speed on interstate highways, state highways and expressways in those areas increased by as much as 75% compared to January and February and somewhat or at times significantly exceeded the speed limit.

INRIX transportation analyst Bob Pishue said drivers in some U.S. cities were seizing upon what they see as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to increase speed. “It is unprecedented,” he said.

In New York City, transportation officials reported an increase of more than 60% in the amount of speed camera tickets issued in March compared with the year-ago period. Preliminary city data suggests a similar trend for the first week of April. At the same time, traffic was down more than 90% compared with January in Manhattan, the city’s central borough.

On Bruckner Boulevard in the city’s Bronx borough, a road with a 30 mph speed limit that made up a large share of speeding camera tickets, 5% of drivers traveled faster than 43 mph in the first week of April, according to INRIX data.

In Washington, D.C., where traffic has decreased some 80% in March compared with January, according to StreetLight Data, officials have recorded a 20% jump in March speeding tickets. Of those, violations issued for driving 21-25 mph over the speed limit rose by nearly 40%.

Meanwhile, California Highway Patrol officials in Los Angeles have taken to Twitter, urging road users to slow down by posting images of rollover crashes and wrecked vehicles due to speeding on a nearly daily basis.

“It’s very common now to observe drivers speeding at around 100 mph,” California Highway Patrol officer Robert Gomez said.

The Los Angeles Police Department said it is redeploying its resources, establishing a high-speed street task force to position officers at strategic roads. The city has also changed its traffic signals sequence to avoid long stretches of green lights.

“Even though significantly fewer people are driving, the people that are out there are putting vulnerable road users at higher risk,” said David Ferry, a lieutenant in the traffic coordination section of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Ferry pointed to LAPD data showing that while collisions and fatalities decreased significantly overall in March, severe collisions were declining at a lower rate.

Police officials in Europe are witnessing a similar trend.

London police on Tuesday released a video showing a driver speeding at 150 mph (240 km/h) and officials said speeds on some roads had nearly doubled over the weekend with some drivers taking advantage of empty roads.

In Germany, police officials in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said about 30% of all vehicles exceeded speed limits in March – compared with roughly 5-8% in a regular year.

Stefan Pfeiffer, a marshal with the Bavarian police in Southern Germany, said drivers were tempted by the false sense of safety conveyed by empty roads and warmer weather was luring inexperienced motorcycle riders.

“While traffic safety presumably increases as fewer people are on the road, individual drivers worsen the situation with their irresponsible and at times completely reckless behavior,” Pfeiffer said.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

CDC director says 19-20 U.S. states may be ready to reopen May 1

By Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday he believes 19 or 20 U.S. states have had limited impact from the new coronavirus and their governors believe they may be ready to reopen by President Donald Trump’s May 1 target date.

“There are a number of counties within this country that have not experienced really any coronavirus despite testing,” Robert Redfield said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“There are a number of states – 19, 20 states – that really have had limited impact from it. So I think we will see some states that are, the governors feel that they’re ready, we’re poised to assist them with that reopening,” Redfield said.

Trump said on Monday evening he was close to completing a plan for ending America’s coronavirus shutdown, which has thrown millions out of work, and may restart the battered U.S. economy in some areas even before May 1. He said around 20 states were “in extremely good shape and could reopen fairly quickly.

The president took renewed aim at the World Health Organization at the briefing, saying he has instructed his administration to halt U.S. funding to the Geneva-based institution over its handling of the pandemic.

Redfield would not directly answer a question about the president’s decision but said the CDC and WHO have had a long history of working together on global health outbreaks.

“We’ve had a very productive public health relationship,” he said. “We continue to have that.”

The CDC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have put together a public health strategy to reopen parts of the country as part of the larger White House effort get Americans back to work, the Washington Post reported.

The plan cites three phases: A national communication campaign and community readiness assessment through May 1; increased emergency funding and production of testing kits and personal protective equipment through May 15; and staged reopenings depending on local conditions.

The plan said some mitigation measures would have to remain in effect and communities that would only need “low mitigation” efforts are places where the virus never took hold, the Post said.

The document warned: “Models indicate 30-day shelter in place followed by 180 day lifting of all mitigation results in large rebound curve — some level of mitigation will be needed until vaccines or broad community immunity is achieved for recovering communities.”

Redfield said mitigation steps such as people staying physically separated would also likely have to continue until a vaccine and treatments are available.

“I do think we’re going to have some social distancing that’s going to be a critical part of our strategy as we go forward,” he told CBS “This Morning” in an interview.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Editing by Alex Richardson and Steve Orlofsky)

With cheers, New York nurses greet reinforcements from across the U.S.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – With loud cheers and applause, medical staff at New York’s Northwell Health network greeted 46 nurses on Tuesday who had arrived from all over the United States to reinforce hospitals as they battle the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus topped 24,000 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally. There were nearly 583,000 confirmed cases, over 200,000 of which were in New York state alone.

Treating the large number of patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has challenged hospitals in its U.S. epicenter. They have scrambled to find enough ventilators and other equipment, as well as beds and staff.

Northwell, the largest healthcare provider in New York, said it had contracted medical staffing companies to help it buttress efforts to treat patients at 18 hospitals across New York City, Long Island and Westchester county.

The “clap-in,” with dozens of staff cheering loudly and holding signs saying “Nurses are the heart of healthcare” and “Welcome, healthcare heroes,” was a surprise for the nurses who arrived on Tuesday afternoon for a half-day training session. Hailing from states including California, South Carolina, and Indiana, they are undergoing training in subjects ranging from operating ventilators to dealing with electronic medical records.

“It’s so heartwarming to see so many nurses come from so far away to assist us in our time of need,” said Maureen White, executive vice president and chief nurse executive at Northwell.

About 300 nurses from other areas have been enlisted over the past three weeks, said Launette Woolforde, Northwell’s registered nurse and vice president for nursing education.

Marybella Cole, who had arrived in New York from Lewiston, Idaho, said community was important to her.

“There’s no bigger calling than something like this,” she said.

Raymond Woods said he had left kids and grandchildren behind in Indiana so he could help.

“I have never been more proud to be a nurse. This is by far the most rewarding career I’ve had in my life,” he said.

(Reporting by Andrew Hofstetter; Writing by Bernadette Baum; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

U.S. coronavirus death toll tops 24,000: Reuters tally

(Reuters) – U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus topped 24,000 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally, as officials debated how to reopen the economy without reigniting the outbreak.

The United States, with the world’s third-largest population, has recorded more fatalities from COVID-19 than any other country. There were a total of nearly 583,000 U.S. cases with nearly 2 million reported cases globally.

On Monday, the United States reported about 1,500 new fatalities, far below last week’s running tally of roughly 2,000 deaths every 24 hours, according to a Reuters tally. U.S. deaths exceeded 24,400 on Tuesday with many states yet to report.

Sweeping stay-at-home restrictions to curb the spread of the illness, in place for weeks in many areas of the United States, have taken a painful toll on the economy. With businesses closed and curbs on travel, officials and lawmakers are debating when it might be safe to begin reopening some sectors.

(Writing by Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Howard Goller)

‘Everything’s gone’: Tornadoes rip U.S. South, kill at least 26

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – Rescue workers and homeowners across the U.S. South on Monday sifted through what remained of hundreds of structures destroyed by a series of tornadoes that killed at least 26 people, as the deadly weather system churned up the East Coast.

Nearly 51 million people from Florida to New England were in the path of the system, with National Weather Service forecasters warning of strong winds, torrential rain and possibly more tornadoes on Monday afternoon.

The system had already spawned about 60 reported tornadoes that left a path of destruction from Texas to the Carolinas on Sunday and Monday, the weather service reported.

Powerful winds in the upper atmosphere combined with a strong cold front to make the system particularly dangerous, said weather service meteorologist Aaron Tyburski.

“This was very typical of the spring season – definitely not something out of the ordinary – but it is very active,” he said.

Damaged buildings and vehicles are seen in the aftermath of a tornado in Monroe, Louisiana, U.S. April 12, 2020, in this still image obtained from social media. Courtesy of Peter Tuberville/Social Media via REUTERS

At least 11 people were killed in Mississippi, eight in South Carolina, six in Georgia and one in Arkansas in the storms, local media and state officials reported.

Five of the people who were killed in Georgia were in two Murray County mobile home parks that were leveled as tornadoes rolled through the area, Murray County Fire Chief Dewayne Bain told a Fox News affiliate in the region.

Among the dead in Mississippi were Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Robert Ainsworth and his wife, Paula.

“Robert left this world a hero, as he shielded Mrs. Paula during the tornado,” the sheriff’s department said on Facebook.

Local media across the region showed images and video clips of homeowners and rescue workers picking through piles of rubble as flattened homes, overturned vehicles and downed power lines covered the landscape.

“It just tore everything. Everything’s gone,” Latesha Dillon, whose brother was killed in Walthall County, Mississippi, told a local ABC affiliate.

Firefighters in Orangeburg County, South Carolina, found a handful of people trapped in two homes on Monday, the Times and Democrat, the local newspaper, reported.

In Upson County, Georgia, 65 miles (105 km) south of Atlanta, homeowner Paul McDaniel and his wife raced to an interior part of their home as a reported tornado rolled through their neighborhood early on Monday.

“I heard it and grabbed her and we ran into the hall and … it was something like I never heard before,” McDaniel told a Fox News affiliate in the region.

Nearly 580,000 million homes and businesses in North and South Carolina, Arkansas, New York and Virginia were without power on Monday, Poweroutage said.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; editing by Jonathan Oatis)