Thousands of Southerners who lost everything last month to a pack of killer twisters will need new homes after they move out of shelters and relatives' spare bedrooms, but the types of housing they find will vary widely depending on where they live.
The communities that caught the brunt of the tornadoes range from rural crossroads in Mississippi to mid-sized Alabama cities like Tuscaloosa and Huntsville. Places like Smithville, Miss., had few rental houses or apartments to begin with; hard-hit Birmingham has a much larger stock that's ready for almost immediate occupancy.
Unlike after Hurricane Katrina, when crews set up thousands of nearly identical campers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency all over coastal Mississippi and southern Louisiana, officials say different areas hit by the tornadoes will require varying solutions.
The National Weather Service and state emergency officials are still tallying how many homes were destroyed when waves of tornadoes mowed through the South, killing hundreds in seven states as entire neighborhoods were wiped out in some areas. Alabama took the hardest hit: The state said 236 people were dead at last count, and 42 of the state's 67 counties have been approved to receive disaster assistance.
In Mississippi, state emergency management spokesman Jeff Rent said officials will help tornado victims secure mobile homes from FEMA in hard-hit Monroe County, where 15 people died and dozens of homes and businesses were damaged. The challenge is finding suitable sites for the mobile homes, especially in hard-hit areas like Smithville, which was littered with debris, Rent said. In Bertie County, N.C., residents left homeless by a mid-April tornado outbreak are living in FEMA trailers.
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