No class, no football? Twister ravages 'Bama

[May 02, 2011]  TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) -- Most everyone in this college town has at least one crimson-colored University of Alabama shirt tucked in a dresser drawer. Students live both in dormitories and neighborhoods beside retirees, and "Roll Tide" is painted in fading red across the top of the city's biggest water tank.

After a deadly tornado that ripped through town, many of those Crimson Tide shirts were hanging off broken trees or lying in dried mud where peoples' homes used to be. While the campus itself avoided a direct hit from the monster that mowed through Tuscaloosa last week, the storm put a painful damper on the school year and left the future -- even football season this fall -- an open question.

At least five 'Bama students are among the 45 dead in the city. School officials canceled finals, which were supposed to begin Monday, and postponed graduation ceremonies for about 2,500 seniors until August. No one knows exactly how many students, faculty and staff were among the hundreds injured or thousands displaced, but some of the hardest-hit areas are within blocks of the school.

With classes over, homes demolished and power still out in many areas, most of the school's 30,000 students are already back home, leaving the old campus eerily quiet at a time it should be teeming with study groups sitting under shade trees on the lush, green Quad near Denny Chimes, a tower where football captains leave their handprints and footprints in concrete.

"It's like ... it's just .... Everybody's gone," said Lynn Andrews, a dance instructor. "They left, took off."

Of the students who do remain, many are helping clear debris and providing other relief, like distributing water. Some rescued people from the wreckage. One group pulled a puppy out of a tree.

The abrupt, violent end to the semester has been particularly hard on seniors. With their course work suddenly over but no diploma in hand, there's nothing to close out their college experience except scenes of devastation all over a town many grew to love for fraternity parties, football Saturdays, long days at Gorgas Library and friends.

"We all just feel like we're in this weird limbo. We're ready to leave but we don't really want to leave," said Richard Cockrum, who begins medical school in the fall.

The tornado touched down southwest of campus around 5 p.m. Wednesday, a time when many students normally are still in class or thinking about dinner. It passed south of the 101,821-seat Bryant-Denny Stadium and missed the law school and a nearby hospital. But it plowed through neighborhoods where many students and university employees live before churning on toward the Birmingham area. It left behind some of Tuscaloosa's worst destruction since 1865, when Union troops burned down nearly the entire campus at the end of the Civil War.

Nursing student Christina Lacombe of Dallas saw the gigantic black cloud from her apartment, then ran into a bathroom with three friends and braced for the worst. Her ears popped as windows blew out and the rafters rattled.

Once it was over, she walked out into a world she no longer recognized.

"If you just planted me here and I didn't know where I was in Tuscaloosa I would have no idea, and I drive by here every single day. I go down this road to go to school," she said, standing near the remains of a friend's home in a neighborhood where every home was damaged. "It's insane."

Iris Hinton's two sons lived in a house that was directly in the twister's path. One was safe inside the law school when it struck, but the other was at the house with his girlfriend and a cousin.

For a time, Hinton didn't know if her boys were dead or alive. She also lives in Tuscaloosa and rushed to the house, which was just a short walk from campus.

"When I got here I did not know that the boys had made it out. So me and some volunteers and troopers and everybody threw debris around searching, yelling for them because I thought they were in the house and it was completely demolished," she said, looking away to hold back tears. "It was a scary time."

Many parents who don't live in town had to wait even longer to find out if their children were OK because cell phone towers were toppled.

With many students already out of dorms, administrators are now planning for a brief interim period and summer semester, which will go on as planned with relatively few students in town. The big question is what happens in the fall, when those 30,000 students return.

The students will return to a changed city. Familiar landmarks will be bulldozed by then, and hotels and motels could still be busy with relief workers and construction crews.

Mark Nelson, vice president of student affairs and vice provost, said the school and city still must figure out what to do about football season, which is the busiest time of year. The first of seven home games is Sept. 3 against Kent State, and right now it's hard to imagine more than 100,000 people streaming into Tuscaloosa in RVs, airplanes and cars for an athletic event.

With so much to do right now, Nelson said officials will have to decide later whether the city is up to throngs of football fans.

"We'll be working with the city on that because it is the city that houses them," he said.

[Associated Press; By JAY REEVES]

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