there are many places the damage to homes and business cess nothing short of catastrophic. we can't control when or where a terrible storm may strike. but we can control how we respond to it. i want everybody american who has been affected by this disaster to know the federal government will do everything we can to help you recover. >> cnn's martin savage is in pleasant grove, alabama. what's it like where you are? >> just as the president described, a catastrophic kind of scene you see here. we got here at 2:00 in the morning, pitch dark. only the kind of dark you can have when there is absolutely no electricity. still there were people out there searching, trying to find those that may still be trapped in the rubble. we knew when daylight came that it would be an absolutely horrible scene and this is the proof of it. really this is just a minuscule example of it. we followed two families as they returned to their homes today. two families that know each