President Barack Obama’s disaster declaration for Tennessee came through Sunday night, bringing with it a train of federal recovery programs that will help storm-shattered communities in Southeast Tennessee recover.
Neighboring Georgia and Alabama already had received presidential disaster declarations in the wake of the deadly tornadoes that ravaged the South on Wednesday and killed around 350 people.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has disaster assistance centers up and running in Rainsville, Ala., where 32 people have died. Centers will open this week in Catoosa and Walker counties in Georgia, officials there said.
Area electric utilities were reporting progress in restoring power: EPB reported 22,000 customers without power in its service area; Cleveland Utilities had 3,224; Volunteer Energy still had about 2,000 to hook up and North Georgia Electric Membership Cooperative had only about 400 who weren’t back on the grid.
“Everybody’s really anxious to getting everyone back on,” said EPB spokeswoman Lacie Newton.