In Tornado Zone, Many Ask, ‘How Can We Help?’

It is hard to imagine what it will take to put life back together in the states torn by last week’s storms. One estimate, by the risk model forecaster EQECAT, put the insured property losses between $2 billion and $5 billion.

Still, the contractors were hoping to secure their share of three contracts the city plans to award for the cleanup. People here expect them to be worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to a trade still hobbled by the real estate crash and recession.

“It’s an awful situation, but this is how we can help,” said Jordan Huffstetler, 29, a general contractor who drove in from Birmingham, Ala.

On Saturday, the number of people reported killed in eight states during last week’s storms rose again, to 349. In Alabama, 250 bodies have been recovered, though the hundreds of people still missing suggested that many bodies remained undiscovered.

The last time more people were killed in a series of tornadoes in the United States was March 18, 1925, when almost 700 died in a storm that raged through Illinois, Indiana and Missouri.

President Obama declared two other states, Georgia and Mississippi, federal disasters late Friday night. Although the brunt of the casualties are in Alabama, Mississippi sustained the fiercest part of the storm. The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado ranked a rare EF5 — the worst possible with winds as high as 205 miles per hour — hit the northeast part of the state and contributed to the near obliteration of tiny Smithville, where 14 bodies have been found so far.

Over all, Mississippi lost 35 people to the storm, and emergency officials reported that at least 1,822 homes were damaged. Georgia, which had a tornado nearly as strong as the one in Mississippi, has recorded 15 deaths in the northern part of the state. Tennessee had 34 deaths and has asked for federal assistance.

Hundreds of thousands in several Southern states were facing a fourth day without power, and dozens of shelters remained open.

The recovery “will be measured in inches, not miles,” Mayor Walter Maddox of Tuscaloosa said Saturday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it was working to bring trailers to the region. The plight of thousands of newly homeless people was starting to surface.

Judy Pool, 55, spent part of Sunday at community center in Tuscaloosa that had been turned into a shelter, flipping through donated clothes and shoes to find something in her size. She could get water, medical aid and food.

Her home is destroyed. She has her cellphone and her wallet. “I’m staying with my sister until, well, I don’t know until when,” she said.

The urge to help those like Ms. Pool gripped people all over the country.

Although emergency officials have cautioned people to not simply show up with trucks or cars filled with donations, Elisabeth Omilami, executive director of the Hosea Feed The Hungry and Homeless program in Atlanta, already had a couple of truckloads of water and toiletries ready to take to churches in Alabama.

“Why would you say don’t send stuff?” she asked. “How much can you hurt another family by giving them clothes when they don’t have any?”

Other people are doing what they can. Grocery stores set up trucks in parking lots to hand out free water. Amy Audette, a special effects makeup artist in Los Angeles who grew up in Alabama, started soliciting donations of food and clothing via her Twitter account. She said she would send whatever she gets to family in the state to distribute.

Chris and Rachel Stephens, a couple in their 20s whose home was spared, cooked a batch of apple pancakes and headed to a heavily damaged Tuscaloosa neighborhood. They hung a sign — “Free hope pancakes for all!” — figuring a little comfort food might take people’s minds off the emotional toll.

“Now it’s starting to set in,” Mr. Stephens said. “Everybody’s like, ‘What’s the next step?’?”

Robbie Brown reported from Tuscaloosa, and Kim Severson from Atlanta.