MAYFIELD, Ky. -- Fast restoration of water, heat and electricity to Kentucky counties hit by weekend tornadoes remained uncertain Monday as the toll of damage and deaths came into clearer focus in five states slammed by the swarm of twisters.
President Joe Biden will visit the state Wednesday.
Kentucky authorities said the sheer level of destruction was hindering their ability to tally the damage from Friday night's storms. At least 88 people -- including 74 in Kentucky -- were killed by the tornado outbreak that also destroyed a nursing home in Arkansas, heavily damaged an Amazon distribution center in Illinois and spread its deadly effects into Tennessee and Missouri.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has opened an investigation into the collapse of the 1.1 million-square-foot Amazon warehouse.
In Kentucky, as searches continued for those still missing, efforts also turned to repairing the power grid, sheltering those whose homes were destroyed and delivering drinking water and other supplies.
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"We're not going to let any of our families go homeless," Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in announcing that lodges in state parks were being used to provide shelter.
Throughout the weekend and again Monday, the governor had choked up during his briefings when describing the deaths of children or the scale of devastation. On Monday afternoon, when the state's first lady, Britainy Beshear, began speaking about a toy drive for the families affected by the storm, she was overwhelmed and unable to continue; the governor had to pick up where she had stopped.
In Mayfield, one of the hardest-hit places, those who survived faced a high temperature in the 50s and a low below freezing Monday without any utilities.
"Our infrastructure is so damaged. We have no running water. Our water tower was lost. Our wastewater management was lost, and there's no natural gas to the city. So we have nothing to rely on there," Mayfield Mayor Kathy Stewart O'Nan said on "CBS Mornings." "So that is purely survival at this point for so many of our people."
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Across the state, about 26,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, according to poweroutage.us, including nearly all of those in Mayfield. More than 10,000 homes and businesses have no water, and another 17,000 are under boil-water advisories, Kentucky Emergency Management Director Michael Dossett told reporters.
Debris from destroyed buildings and shredded trees covered the ground in Mayfield, a city of about 10,000 in western Kentucky. Twisted sheet metal, downed power lines and wrecked vehicles lined the streets. Windows were blown out and roofs torn off the buildings that were still standing.
Kentucky was the worst hit by far in the cluster of twisters across several states, remarkable because they came at a time of year when cold weather normally limits tornadoes. At least 74 people died in the state, Beshear said Monday, offering the first specific count of the dead.
In Bowling Green, Ky., 11 people died on the same street, including two infants found among the bodies of five relatives near a home, Warren County coroner Kevin Kirby said.
Beshear warned that it could take days longer to pin down the full death toll, with door-to-door searches impossible in some places.
"With this amount of damage and rubble, it may be a week or even more before we have a final count on the number of lost lives," the governor said.
Initially as many as 70 people were feared dead in the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory, but the company said Sunday that eight deaths were confirmed and eight people remained missing, while more than 90 others had been located. Bob Ferguson, a spokesman for the company, said many employees gathered in a tornado shelter, then left the site and were hard to reach because phone service was out.
On Monday evening, Louisville Emergency Management Director E.J. Meiman said at a news conference that the company indicated everyone in the building during the storm had been accounted for. "We have a high level of confidence that nobody is left in this building," Meiman said, noting the death toll from the factory has not changed.
Five twisters hit Kentucky in all, including one with an extraordinarily long path of about 200 miles, authorities said.
In addition to the deaths in Kentucky, the tornadoes killed at least six people in Illinois, where the Amazon distribution center in Edwardsville was hit; four in Tennessee; two in Arkansas, where the nursing home was destroyed and the governor said workers shielded residents with their own bodies; and two in Missouri.
'WON'T EVER BE THE SAME'
Not far from Mayfield, 67 people spent Sunday night at a church serving as a shelter in Wingo, and 40 more were expected to arrive Monday. Organizers were working to find a mobile outdoor shower facility and a laundry truck, expecting many of the displaced to need a long-term place to stay. Volunteers were scrambling to meet more immediate needs as well, such as underwear and socks.
Lifelong Mayfield resident Cynthia Gargis, 51, is staying with her daughter after the storm tore off the front of her apartment and sucked out almost everything inside. She came to the shelter to offer help and visit with friends who lost their homes.
"I don't know, I don't see how we'll ever get over this," she said. "It won't ever be the same."
Glynda Glover, 82, said she had no idea how long she would stay at the Wingo shelter: Her apartment is uninhabitable since the wind blew out the windows and covered her bed in glass and asphalt.
"I'll stay here until we get back to whatever normal is," she said, "and I don't know what normal is anymore."
On the outskirts of Dawson Springs, another town devastated by the storms, homes were reduced to rubble and trees toppled, littering the landscape for a span of at least a mile.
"It looks like a bomb went off. It's just completely destroyed in areas," said Jack Whitfield Jr., the Hopkins County judge-executive.
He estimated that more than 60% of the town, including hundreds of homes, was "beyond repair."
"A full recovering is going to take years," he said.
Tim Morgan, a volunteer chaplain for the Hopkins County sheriff's office, said he's seen the aftermath of tornadoes and hurricanes before, but nothing like this.
"Just absolute decimation. There is an entire hillside of houses that are 3 feet tall now," he said.
BIDEN TO VISIT
Biden will travel to Kentucky on Wednesday to assess the impact and offer support.
In a briefing Monday, he said the governors of affected states would get "whatever they need, when they need it."
"We're going to get this done. We're going to be there as long as it takes to help," the president said, adding that he was worried about the mental health of the survivors and the uncertainty they face.
Biden said he was working with state officials to ensure that his visit will not get in the way of recovery efforts. He will first travel to Fort Campbell for a storm briefing, then to Mayfield and Dawson Springs to survey the damage, the White House said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is often at odds with the Biden administration, thanked the president Monday for his rapid approval of a major disaster declaration for Kentucky.
"Our entire congressional delegation came together to support GovAndyBeshear's request," McConnell tweeted. "I appreciate the Administration's quick work to speed resources to help deal with this crisis."
About 300 National Guard members are helping with rescue and recovery in Kentucky as survivors survey what remains of their properties and state workers haul debris and collect dead livestock.
Federal Emergency Management Agency officials also will be on the ground to help residents document losses at their homes and file insurance claims, Beshear told reporters.
"I believe this is the most rapid response by the federal government in the history of the United States of America," he said. "And we need it."
Beshear ordered state offices to fly their flags at half-staff for a week beginning today to honor the dead and others affected by the storms. Cabins and cottages in state parks will serve as emergency housing for at least two weeks, and the state is looking for volunteers to help wash dishes and clothes at the sites.
The state-run Team Western Kentucky Tornado Relief fund had collected more than $4 million in donations as of early Monday, Beshear said. Some of that will be doled out to victims' families, each of whom will receive $5,000 for burial expenses.
Officials warned that restoring the state would take a long time.
"This is not going to be a months or a weeks operation, folks," said Dossett of Kentucky Emergency Management. "This will go on for years to come."
He added, "The long and the short of it is, we don't really know, by any stretch of the imagination, of all the infrastructure damage yet."
WAREHOUSE INVESTIGATION
Meanwhile, federal and state officials said Monday they will investigate the collapse of the Amazon delivery depot in Illinois.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at a news conference that a state investigation into whether the building was constructed according to building codes was ongoing, while federal workplace safety regulators said they had opened an investigation as well.
Company officials have defended their safety procedures.
At the news conference, an Amazon spokesperson, Kelly Nantel, said the company believed the building was constructed properly, despite the catastrophic damage. "Obviously we want to go back and look at every aspect of this," she said.
Pritzker said he was already speaking with lawmakers about whether the state's building codes should be updated, "based upon the climate change we are seeing all around us." He added, "That is something we are deeply concerned about, to make sure code is where it ought to be."
The federal investigation will be undertaken by the local office of OSHA, which has had compliance officers on the ground since Saturday, said Scott Allen, a regional spokesperson for the agency. He said the agency has six months "to complete its investigation, issue citations and propose monetary penalties if violations of workplace safety and or health regulations are found."
John Felton, an Amazon logistics executive, said at the news conference that "everything that we have seen, it was all procedures were followed correctly." He said the 46 people in the delivery depot when the tornado hit acted "heroically," using phones, bullhorns and other tools to move as many people to safety as possible.
Thirty-nine people sheltered in a space on the north side of the building that was "nearly undamaged," Felton said, and seven people congregated on the south side of the facility, which fell directly in the tornado's path.
The shelter spaces were not separate rooms but interior locations away from windows and other hazards, Nantel said.
Pritzker said the risk of flooding in the industrial area where the building sits prohibited the construction of basement structures that could have provided better protection. He said there was an "ongoing look" at the initial confusion over how many people were in the building, which was staffed by many contractors who were not required to scan their badges when they entered the building at the end of their shifts.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, among the contributors to this story.
Information for this article was contributed by Bruce Schreiner, Claire Galofaro, Kristin Hall, Seth Borenstein, Zeke Miller, Dino Hazell, Travis Loller, Rebecca Reynolds and Jonathan Drew of The Associated Press; by Campbell Robertson, Rick Rojas, Azi Paybarah, Eduardo Medina, Jim Tankersley and Karen Weise of The New York Times; and by Rachel Pannett, Annabelle Timsit, Paulina Firozi and Marisa Iati of The Washington Post.
Dave Courtney dusts off family photos from the rubble of his best friend's mother home, that was destroyed, in the aftermath of tornadoes that tore through the region, in Mayfield, Ky., Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Volunteers, mostly from the Mayfield Consumer Products factory, help salvage possessions from the destroyed home of Martha Thomas, in the aftermath of tornadoes that tore through the region several days earlier, in Mayfield, Ky., Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
In this aerial photo, destruction in downtown Mayfield, Ky. is seen Sunday, Dec. 12, 2021, in the aftermath of tornadoes that tore through the region. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Damaged cars and destroyed homes are seen in the aftermath of tornadoes that tore through the region, in Mayfield, Ky., Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A framed photo of Martha Thomas lies among the debris of her destroyed home in the aftermath of tornadoes that tore through the region several days earlier, in Mayfield, Ky., Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Matha Thomas, center, reacts as volunteers, mostly employees of the Mayfield Consumer Products factory, help her salvage her possessions in the aftermath of tornadoes that tore through the region several days earlier, in Mayfield, Ky., Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Sam Willett helps to salvage items from a friends' home Sunday, Dec. 12, 2021, in Mayfield, Ky. Tornadoes and severe weather caused catastrophic damage across several states Friday, killing multiple people overnight. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Martha Thomas salvages Christmas decorations from her destroyed home in the aftermath of tornadoes that tore through the region, in Mayfield, Ky., Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Voluteers help Martha Thomas, second left, salvage possessions from her destroyed home, in the aftermath of tornadoes that tore through the region, in Mayfield, Ky., Monday, Dec. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)