It's barely gotten any press, but just ahead of Super Tuesday, a large urban center in Tennessee, around Nashville, was hit with a horrific tornado, blowing buildings into matchsticks, and leaving 24 dead.

Super Tuesday, the coronavirus, and other stuff left Nashville kind of a backburner news story.

But not to President Trump, who put Tennessee's ordeal up for attention in his Tweets, offering encouragement and support, as well as a swift release of aid. He paid a swift visit to the area to be with the hard-hit Tennesseans, in Putnam County's Cookeville, 80 miles east of Nashville, where the worst of it happened.

According to the Associated Press, which couldn't resist a making a crack about 'national consoler':

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday toured a neighborhood reduced to rubble by a tornado earlier this week and marveled at “the tremendous heart" he witnessed. He also offered a message for survivors and those who lost family members: “We love them, they're special people," he said.

Trump assumed the role of national consoler as he traveled to Tennessee. Trump is touring devastated communities in Putnam County, where a tornado tore a 2-mile-long path, killing 18 people, including five children under 13. Many more people were injured, some critically.

Statewide, the death toll stood at 24 from a pair of storms.

Now we see this:

Thank you to the Great State of Tennessee. We are with you all the way! https://t.co/vyu0Tbthv0

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 8, 2020

Does anyone remember President Obama ever going to places like Cookville in their times of natural disaster distress? I recall a trip he made to the New York City area in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, but that's a big blue city. He couldn't even be bothered to visit Baton Rouge when it was hit by a hurricane, too small and unimportant.

But there President Trump was in Cookeville, fully cognizant of the severity of the tornado that hit it, an EF-4, and the worst to hit the U.S. in three years.

The gratitude is obvious. 

Image credit: Twitter screen shot