Kentucky tornado - latest: Biden takes aerial tour of wreckage as survivors plead for more temporary housing

President Biden’s visit to Kentucky marks the fifth time he’s taken on the grim task of touring an area ravaged by a natural disaster since taking office.

He landed at Fort Campbell for a storm briefing before heading to Mayfield and Dawson Springs to survey storm damage.

While Mr Biden is expected to speak, it’s not the focus of the trip. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the president will meet with storm victims and local officials to provide federal support.

The president “wants to hear directly from people, and he wants to offer his support directly to them”, Ms Psaki said.

Some of the thousands of Kentuckians who lost their homes to tornadoes are calling for the government to address a shortage in temporary housing.

“People need places to go,” one man said in a video shared by The Weather Channel. “We need housing. We need food. We need clothes.”

Another man said: “We have no power, we have no water. I woke up this morning at three o’clock and thought I was frost-bit.”

Governor Andy Beshear has said state agencies are working tirelessly with federal officials to coordinate aid, including housing.

From a helicopter over the town of Mayfield, President Biden on Wednesday saw neighbourhoods pockmarked by piles of debris and homes without roofs and windows.

After his aerial tour, the president told local officials at an airport briefing: “I’m here to listen.”

Mr Biden pledged that federal aid would continue to flow and described the tornado damage as some of the worst he had ever seen. He said this kind of tragedy “either brings people together or it knocks them apart”.

“There’s no red tornadoes and blue tornadoes,” he said.

Associated Press

Fourteen people were killed within just a few blocks, and 11 people, including seven children, died on just a single street in Bowling Green, Kentucky when the tornado struck.

Moss Creek Avenue was hit hard when the ferocious storms hit the western part of the state on Friday night.

Entire families passed away, with two of those who died being infants. Melinda Allen-Ray hadn’t slept much since early on Saturday when tornado warnings prompted her to take her grandchildren into the bathroom, holding on to them as the house was torn apart by the storm. Then she heard the screams of her neighbours.

“I heard them — it traumatised me. I think about that each night when I go to sleep, when I do sleep,” she said. “I just think about all those babies.”

The Independent’s Gustaf Kilander reports:

A heartwarming video captured the moment rescue teams pulled an American flag from a pile of rubble after the Kentucky town of Mayfield was devastated by a tornado.

The flag was found fully intact where it once hung inside Mayfield’s city courthouse.

President Biden praised Kentuckians for coming together in the wake of last weekend’s tornado outbreak during a meeting in Mayfield on Wednesday afternoon.

“People just come out of nowhere to help as a community, and that’s what it’s supposed to be, that’s what America’s supposed to be,” he said.

“There’s no red tornadoes or blue tornadoes, there’s no red states or blue states when this stuff starts to happen. And I think, at least it my experience, it either brings people together or really knocks them apart, and moving together here.”

He also told local leaders: “I’ve instructed my team to make you all aware of everything that is available from a federal level.

“Don’t hesitate to ask for anything.”

Kentucky’s tornado death toll rose by one to 75 on Wednesday as officials confirmed a man died while helping his daughter sift through the wreckage of her home.

The Warren County coroner’s office said Terry Martin Jayne, 67, died of a heart attack at the home in Bowling Green. His death is considered “as a result” of the tornado.

Mr Jayne was the owner of a flower shop in Russellville, the coroner said.

As he stepped out of his motorcade to tour Mayfield, President Biden was reportedly met with a sprinkling of “Let’s go Brandon!” jeers from a nearby crowd.

Several reporters chronicling the president’s tour noted the taunts on Twitter.

The phrase has become popular slogan among Republicans as a code for “f*** Joe Biden”.

A mother whose son died in her arms when a tornado struck their home in Mayfield, Kentucky, has shared her heartbreak at the crushing loss.

When sirens began to sound, Huda Alubahi huddled up in a closet with her two sons, three-year-old Jha’lil Dunbar and one-year-old Julius Dunbar, she told CBS News.

The mother held onto her children as they became trapped under a bathroom sink. When rescuers arrived to pull them out, she learned that Jha’lil had died.

“I wish I could have saved my son,” she said in a tearful interview on Wednesday.

A viral video shows a Kentucky resident playing the piano inside the wreckage of his home after it was struck by a tornado.

As his family sifted through what was left of their house in Bremen, Jordan Baize sat down to play the hymn “There’s Something About That Name” on a grand piano that survived the storm.

Mr Baize’s sister, Whitney Brown, posted a video of the uplifting sight on Facebook, where it racked up thousands of views.

“Music has always been important to me. Specifically church music, Christian music,” Mr Baize told WFIE. “My faith is a huge factor in my life but I am glad to know I guess that if it’s bringing peace and comfort and some sense of calm in an otherwise stormy time, then I am good with that.”