By CHRIS MEGERIAN, LORNE COOK and AAMER MADHANI

BRUSSELS (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for “military assistance without limitations” as he addressed an emergency NATO summit on Thursday, the first of three urgent meetings U.S. President Joe Biden and world leaders are holding in response to the Russian invasion.

Zelenskyy pleaded for anti-air and anti-ship weapons, asking “is it possible to survive in such a war without this?”

“It feels like we’re in a gray area, between the West and Russia, defending our common values,” Zelenskyy said in his video address to the summit. “This is the scariest thing during a war — not to have clear answers to requests for help!”

A Biden administration official, who requested anonymity to discuss the closed summit, said Zelenskyy did not repeat his demand for a no-fly zone, a demand NATO already has rejected. Western officials fear such a step would lead to direct conflict between NATO and Russia, which Biden described as a potential World War III.

However, in brief opening remarks as the NATO summit began, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance must boost its defenses and “respond to a new security reality in Europe.”

“We gather at a critical time for our security,” he told the leaders seated at a large round table. “We are united in condemning the Kremlin’s unprovoked aggression and in our support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Stoltenberg said the alliance is “determined to continue to impose costs on Russia to bring about the end of this brutal war.”

Over the course of Thursday, the European diplomatic capital is hosting the NATO summit, a gathering of the Group of Seven industrialized nations and a summit of the European Union. Biden will attend all three meetings and hold a news conference afterward.

The schedule left Brussels interlaced with multiple police checkpoints and road closures to help motorcades crisscross the city as the leaders go from one meeting to the next.

While the West has been largely unified in confronting Russia after it invaded Ukraine, there’s wide acknowledgement that unity will be tested as the costs of war chip at the global economy.

The bolstering of forces along NATO’s eastern flank, almost certainly for at least the next five to 10 years if Russia is to be effectively dissuaded, will also put pressure on national budgets.

“We need to do more, and therefore we need to invest more. There is a new sense of urgency and I expect that the leaders will agree to accelerate the investments in defense,” Stoltenberg said before the summit.

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the U.S. wants to hear “that the resolve and unity that we’ve seen for the past month will endure for as long as it takes.”

The energy crisis exacerbated by the war will be a particularly hot topic at the European Council summit, where leaders from Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are hoping for an urgent, coordinated bloc-wide response. EU officials have said they will seek U.S. help on a plan to top up natural gas storage facilities for next winter, and they also want the bloc to jointly purchase gas.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has dismissed calls to boycott Russian energy supplies, saying it would cause significant damage to his country’s economy. Scholz is facing pressure from environmental activists to quickly wean Germany off Russian energy, but he said the process will have to be gradual.

“To do so from one day to the next would mean plunging our country and all of Europe into recession,” Scholz said Wednesday.

Poland and other eastern flank NATO countries will also be looking for clarity on how the United States and fellow European nations can assist in dealing with their growing concerns about Russian aggression as well as a spiraling refugee crisis. More than 3.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine in recent weeks, including more than 2 million to Poland.

Biden is scheduled to visit Poland on Friday, where both issues are expected to be at the center of talks with President Andrzej Duda. Another significant moment could come shortly before Biden returns to Washington on Saturday. The White House said he plans to “deliver remarks on the united efforts of the free world to support the people of Ukraine, hold Russia accountable for its brutal war, and defend a future that is rooted in democratic principles.”

Sullivan said Biden and fellow leaders would aim to “set out a longer-term game plan” for what forces and capabilities are going to be required for the alliance’s eastern flank countries.

Four new NATO battlegroups, which usually number between 1,000-1,500 troops, are being set up in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is expected to address the NATO summit by video, said late Wednesday that he wants the alliance to “declare that it will fully assist Ukraine to win this war” by supplying any weapons necessary.

All the while, national security officials from Washington to Warsaw are increasingly worried that Putin might deploy chemical, biological or even nuclear weaponry. Sullivan said the allies would consult on how to respond to “potential contingencies” of that sort.

Biden said this week that the possibility of Russia deploying chemical weapons was a “real threat.”

Stoltenberg declined Thursday to discuss whether such a strike is a red line that would draw the alliance into war with Russia. “I will not speculate beyond the fact that NATO is always ready to defend, to protect and to react to any type of attack on a NATO allied country,” he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in a CNN interview this week said that Russia could consider using its nuclear weapons if it felt there was “an existential threat for our country.”

Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Union’s executive arm, said before Biden’s visit that she wants to discuss the possibility of securing extra deliveries of liquefied natural gas from the United States for the 27-nation bloc “for the next two winters.”

The EU imports 90% of the natural gas used to generate electricity, heat homes and supply industry, with Russia supplying almost 40% of EU gas and a quarter of its oil. The bloc is looking at ways to reduce its dependence on Russian gas by diversifying suppliers.

Sullivan said the United States was looking for ways to “surge” LNG supplies to Europe to help.

Biden, for his part, was expected to detail plans for new sanctions against Russia and humanitarian assistance for the region.

One new sanctions option that Biden is weighing is to target members of the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The new sanctions would be rolled out in coordination with Western allies.

Biden arrived in Brussels with Americans increasingly accepting of the need for the U.S. to help stop Putin, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

But even as concern among Americans has swelled and and support for a major U.S. role in the conflict strengthened in the last month, Biden’s negative approval rating has not budged, the AP-NORC poll found. Few are very confident that he can handle a crisis, and a majority thinks he lacks toughness in dealing with Russia.

Biden promised voters that he had the experience to navigate a complicated international emergency like the one unfolding in Europe and his trip will be the latest test of that proposition as he tries to maintain unity among Western allies and brace for potentially even bigger challenges.

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Madhani reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Hannah Fingerhut and Darlene Superville in Washington and Samuel Petrequin in Brussels contributed to this report.

By GERALD HERBERT and REBECCA SANTANA

ARABI, La. (AP) — A tornado flipped cars, ripped off rooftops and deposited a house in the middle of a street in the New Orleans area, part of a storm front that caused damage in places as it blew from Texas to South Carolina. Two deaths were attributed to the weather.

Other tornadoes spawned by the same storm system had hit parts of Texas and Oklahoma on Monday, killing a woman north of Dallas and causing multiple injuries and widespread damage, before moving eastward.

The National Weather Service confirmed that tornadoes touched down Tuesday night in St. Bernard Parish, which borders New Orleans to the southeast, and in Lacombe, across Lake Pontchartrain from the city. Parish officials gave no details on how the person died; they said multiple other people were injured.

New Orleans television stations broadcast live images of the storm as it barreled across the metropolitan area. In the aftermath, rescue workers were searching through Arabi, just east of the city’s Lower 9th Ward, where St. Bernard Parish President Guy McInnis said the tornado caused significant damage in an area wrecked by Katrina.

Many residents also suffered damage just last year when Category 4 Hurricane Ida swept through. Stacey Mancuso’s family just completed repairs to their home in Arabi after Ida ripped off the roof and caused extensive water damage. As Tuesday’s tornado tore through their street, she huddled in the laundry room with her husband; two children, ages 16 and 11; and dogs as part of their new roof blew away.

“We’re alive. That’s what I can say at this point. We still have four walls and part of a roof. I consider myself lucky,” said Mancuso. Still, the twister was the third time they’ve had major weather damage since Katrina in 2005.

In Arabi, there was a strong smell of natural gas in the air as residents and rescue personnel stood in the street and surveyed the damage. Some houses were destroyed while pieces of debris hung from electrical wires and trees. An aluminum fishing boat in front of one house was bent into the shape of a C with the motor across the street. Power poles were down or leaning over, forcing emergency workers to walk slowly through darkened neighborhoods checking for damage.

Michelle Malasovich lives in Arabi. Initially she had been worried about family to the north who were also getting hit by bad weather. She was texting with them when “all of a sudden the lights started flickering.”

Her husband was out on the porch and saw the tornado coming.

“It just kept getting louder and louder,” Malasovich said. After it passed, they came out to survey the damage — some columns were blown off their porch and the windows of her Jeep were blown out. Others fared worse: “Our neighbor’s house is in the middle of the street right now.”

The parish president said a young girl was on a ventilator in the home at the time.

“We had one rescue — a home that was actually picked up and came down in the middle of the street. A young girl was on a ventilator, her father was looking for firefighters to come help, come help,” McInnis said. “And they were already in there taking care of the young lady and she’s doing fine.”

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell tweeted late Tuesday that there were no reports of casualties or significant damage within the city and that the power utility was working to restore electricity. About 13,000 homes and businesses were reportedly without power in the three parishes around New Orleans. Entergy reported that about 3,500 remained without electricity early Wednesday morning.

As the storm front moved eastward, an apparent twister ripped apart a metal building and shattered windows east of Mobile Bay in Baldwin County, Alabama, and torrential downpours caused flash floods. The weather service reported more than 8 inches of rain fell in the central Alabama city of Sylacauga overnight, and the roofs of several homes were damaged in Toxey, Alabama, where tornado warnings were issued.

The wild weather waned as it moved into South Carolina early Wednesday, but the weather service warned that isolated tornadoes remained possible in southern Georgia.

Shelters were opened ahead of the severe weather, and many schools closed early or canceled after-school activities in parts of Louisiana and Mississippi. Louisiana’s federal and state authorities reminded the more than 8,000 hurricane survivors living in government-provided mobile homes and recreational vehicle trailers to have an evacuation plan.

The vicious weather hit Texas on Monday, where several tornadoes were reported along the Interstate 35 corridor. In Elgin, broken trees lined the rural roads and pieces of metal — uprooted by strong winds hung from the branches. Residents stepped carefully to avoid downed power lines as they worked to clean the remnants of broken ceilings, torn down walls and damaged cars.

J.D. Harkins, 59, said he saw two tornadoes pass by his Elgin home.

“There used to be a barn there,” Harkins said, pointing to an empty plot on his uncle’s property covered with scattered debris. He said the building was empty when the first tornado hit, and that his family is thankful nobody was hurt.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a disaster in 16 hard-hit counties. Abbott said 10 people were injured by storms in the Crockett area, while more than a dozen were reportedly hurt elsewhere.

The Grayson County Emergency Management Office said a 73-year-old woman was killed in the community of Sherwood Shores, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) north of Dallas, but provided no details.

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Associated Press journalists Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; Kimberly Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama; Ken Miller in Oklahoma City; Jill Bleed in Little Rock, Arkansas; Terry Wallace in Dallas; Janet McConnaughy in New Orleans and Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas contributed to this report.