TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Getting a direct look at the nation’s most horrific tornado damage in decades, President Barack Obama on Friday prepared to comfort victims and offer the federal government’s help to an entire reeling region. The nightmare storms in the South have killed about 300 people, chiefly in Alabama.

The president’s spokesman, Jay Carney, said Obama wanted to “make clear the administration’s commitment to helping in any way that it can, and to put a spotlight for the rest of America on what kind of suffering a storm like this can cause to so many families and businesses.”

First lady Michelle Obama was at the president’s side as he offered condolences. He has stepped into the role of national consoler in chief before, including after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords earlier this year, but has not had to deal with the scope of such community obliteration until now.

Obama planned to make a statement in Alabama. It was part of a day of contrasts remarkable even for a president, traveling to storm-ravaged Alabama before heading to Cape Canaveral, Fla., to cheer the final launch of space shuttle Endeavour alongside the injured Giffords.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.