Schools plan to reopen after deadly storms

In Little Axe, where a tornado destroyed the school’s central office and football stadium last May, much of the damage has been repaired, district Superintendent Barry Damrill said. But it took time to work with insurance companies to expedite payments so that construction could begin.

When asked what advice Damrill would give to his counterparts in Tushka, he said: “Patience.”

“They’re just going to have to be as patient as they can. It’s going to take a long time to put everything back together,” he said.

Many Tushka students have been on cleanup duty since the storm hit. One of them, 15-year-old high school freshman Shelbee Gabriel, is looking forward to returning to school, even though she said it “will be more stressful” as students study for and take end-of-instruction exams.

“When you’re in school, you wish it would be the end of the year, so you could go out and have fun,” she said. “But when something like this happens, it’s all gone and you kind of miss [school] because that’s what you did all day. Instead you have to see people who’ve lost everything crying as they go through their things.”

Storms battered their way from Oklahoma to North Carolina, claiming at least 44 lives, almost half of those in North Carolina. It was the deadliest since Feb. 5, 2008, when 57 died in the “Super Tuesday” election day tornadoes in the Southeast. And that was the highest tornado death toll since 76 died in 1985.

From April 14 through April 16, there were reports of funnel clouds in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

In North Carolina, just east of downtown Raleigh at Shaw University, a tornado poked a hole in the roof of the student center and knocked out dormitory windows. The school canceled the last two weeks of school because of the damage.

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