EUTAW, Ala. (AP) – Only 7,600 or so people live in impoverished Greene County, and hundreds of them are clustered in a public housing community called Branch Heights. Officials are now trying to find housing for more than 100 residents who were displaced when a tornado hit the neighborhood late Wednesday.
The hunt is complicated by the fact that the rural area, located about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of Birmingham, doesn’t have much excess housing that’s suitable, and some people lack transportation. To make matters worse, forecasters say more storms are possible this weekend.
“We have to find somewhere for them to live, they have to have shelter,” Anita Lewis, executive director of the Greene County Housing Authority, told WBMA-TV on Thursday. “The more I looked, the more devastating it got.”
More than 40 homes in the community were damaged by what the National Weather Service said was a weak tornado, and 27 are uninhabitable with significant damage to roofs and other parts of the structure. About 110 people were displaced, officials said.
Mattie Roscoe, who rode out the twister with one of her grandchildren, was briefly trapped in the wreckage of her home.