"My thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the terrible tornadoes and flooding, especially those who lost loved ones," Bush said.

"We've been inspired by the stories of heroism, neighbors helping neighbors and communities coming together... They'll have the prayers of the American people, and we'll help them recover."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff toured this small Iowa town Thursday to survey the damage left by the bad weather and see the site where four teenage Scouts died Wednesday when a tornado hit their camp.

"It's a really terrible tragedy," he said. "I think everybody will be particularly touched by the thought of the finest young people in this region being caught up in a tornado which struck them like a bowling ball."

The Little Sioux Scout Ranch in Iowa's remote western hills was "virtually destroyed" when the twister touched down late Wednesday, the president of the Boy Scouts Mid-American Council, Lloyd Roitstein, said.

About 100 staff and boys aged 13 to 17 were in the middle of a week-long leadership training course when the tornado hit, ripping tents off the ground and snapping trees at the 1,800-acre (730-hectare) compound, he said.

State emergency officials named the four victims as Aaron Eilerts, 14, of Iowa, Josh Fennen, 13, Sam Thomsen, 13, and Ben Petrzilka, 14, all three from Nebraska. Another 40 people at the camp were reportedly injured.

It sounded "like freight trains coming at us," one of the scout leaders, 14-year-old Zach Jessen said, after surviving with little more than bruises.

Jessen grabbed his best friend at the camp and lay on top of him to shield him from the flying debris. "When it hit, it felt like I was getting shot at -- there was rocks, dirt, grass, trees, everything," he said.

The scouts had a weather radio with them and had carried out an emergency tornado drill the day before so "they knew what to do," Roitstein said.

As the weather worsened they retreated into the camp's bunkhouse and when it was hit they set up their own mini-triage unit to help the injured, Iowa Governor Chet Culver said here.

Their actions "literally saved lives" as they waited for emergency services to cut their way through fallen trees to reach the camp, about a mile from the nearest road, he said.

Officials said a man and a woman also died in separate incidents after several twisters swept through northeast Kansas on Wednesday causing "significant damage" to homes, business and buildings.

Iowa was already struggling after the east of the state was hit by flooding earlier this week leaving some 20,000 people in Mason County without clean water after a treatment plant flooded.

Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin have all been hit by extreme weather, with flooding causing widespread damage.

A bridge on the flood-swollen Mississippi was closed indefinitely after a three barges slammed into it, while bridges have been closed in several other states to combat rising river levels which could hit new records.

Residents in the town of Cedar Falls, Iowa, were told to evacuate on Tuesday, as part of a railroad bridge was swept away at Waterloo.

"This is been a remarkable onslaught of weather, everything from flooding, unbelievable rain and of course tornados all descending at once," Chertoff said in Blencoe.

He vowed the US administration stood "shoulder-to-shoulder" with communities as they prepared to rebuild.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has asked the government to declare farm disasters in 44 counties because of crop damage and livestock losses, with estimates of the damage reaching 126 million dollars.

Across the country in California, meanwhile, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in a coastal county south of San Francisco as wildfires threatened thousands of homes in the state's rain-starved north.

The Santa Cruz fire has already ravaged 280 hectares (700 acres) and an unspecified number of buildings, he said. In Butte County, two brush and forest fires have scorched some 10,000 hectares and destroyed 21 homes.

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