Grim task: Alabama officials double-check tornado death toll as many bodies were 'not found whole'
- State revises its death toll down to 236 from 250 as victim re-count begins
- Schools open in Jefferson County for first time since tornadoes hit
Alabama officials have begun the grim task of double-checking the number of victims killed by last week's devastating tornadoes amid concerns some may have been counted twice.
The head of the state's Emergency Management Agency said getting an accurate death toll would be difficult because some of the bodies were torn apart by the storms and were not found whole.
He has already revised the total down to 236 from the 250 reported at the weekend, but officials warned it could rise again as the search for the dead continues.
Destroyed: Workers examine a wall smashed by a tornado at Independence Tube, Decatur, Alabama
At present officials believe 328 people were killed across seven states when a band of tornadoes ravaged the South, making it the deadliest twister outbreak since the Great Depression.
It comes the day after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced there were more tornadoes in a single day in America last week than any other day in history.
According to NOAA, there were 312 tornadoes in total, including 226 in one day.
That figure is far higher than the previous record, when 148 tornadoes lashed the South between April 3 and 4, 1974.
The 24-hour period from 8am on Wednesday to 8am on Thursday was the deadliest single day for tornadoes since 1936, when 454 people died in Tupelo, Mississippi, and Gainesville, Georgia, between April 5 and 6.
Devastation: The U.S. flag flies amid debris in Hueytown, Alabama as residents trawl through the wreckage
Patrol: Sergeant Brent Blankley walks through the rubble in Rosedale, Tuscaloosa, as he helps maintain a night-time curfew
The deadliest day on record was March 18, 1925, when twisters killed 747 people across seven states. In March 1932, a tornado outbreak claimed the lives of 332 people in Alabama alone.
In Tuscaloosa, officers were working 12-hour shifts with no breaks to maintain a night-time curfew imposed across the stricken city to stop looting.
But there was hope in the devastated state today as students returned to school in Pleasant Grove for the first time since the tornadoes hit.
Students ignored the toppled trees and National Guard trucks to greet each other with shrieks, bear hugs and jubilation at their own survival.
Schools reopened across Jefferson County today, but elsewhere many remained shut because their buildings had been destroyed or badly damaged.
Ravaged neighbourhood: A portrait of Cookie and Kenneth Vincent is left behind in the remains of their home in Pleasant Grove, where students today returned to school
Many of Pleasant Grove's 420 students had lost their homes and have been staying with relatives, or in hotels.
One, Sandrea McAlpine, said: 'I was happy because I thought they had died. I talked to some of them, but I didn't know if everyone was ok.'
Grammar and math lessons were scrapped this morning as teachers and counsellors helped students to share their experiences.
Principal Jarvis Watkins said: 'To see friends walking on the streets looking for their personal items, to know you have friends who have lost loved ones, to not have a home to go to, it's pretty rough on a teenager.'
Looking forward: Students returned to school in Pleasant Grove today for the first time since tornadoes tore through the area. Many are staying with relatives after their homes were destroyed
In one language art class, students were asked to draw pictures describing what they had been through. Some drew funnel clouds and uprooted trees, while another covered the paper with a huge frowning face, wet with tears.
A teacher said she had to choke back tears when she read some of her students' essays. Jayla Arrick, 12, wrote: 'It could have been the other way. I am going to stop complaining about every little thing because I could have been the one without a home or a life.'
One of her classmates, Brandon Wilson, lost all his belongings when a tornado swept through his home in Pleasant Grove.
He said the impact was 'devastating'. But he added: 'I'm just glad to be here.'