By JAY REEVES
Associated Press
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Lunchtime approaches, and a tornado survivor tries to sleep on one of dozens of cots that fill a converted gymnasium as others mill around. A few yards away, a man irons a pair of pants atop a folding table. The portable showers are outside in the parking lot.
It’s been a month since tornadoes bulldozed wide swaths of the South, killing more than 300 people in seven states, yet nearly 100 Alabama survivors are still living in public shelters where the nights are fitful and the days muggy and boring. It could be a preview of what’s in store for some people in tornado-ravaged Joplin, Mo., after a twister killed at least 125 people there and leveled entire neighborhoods.
Nowhere in the Southern tornado zone is the lingering shelter problem worse than in Tuscaloosa. The home city of the University of Alabama took the biggest hit in the April 27 storms, losing 41 people. More than 5,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in the city.