Alabama Governor Robert Bentley Tours Pickens County

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PICKENS COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)-After a devastating tornado ripped through West Alabama, many residents in Pickens County still remain homeless.

Wanting to do something about it, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley took a visit to the hard hit area to offer support and provide assistance to those affected.
Bentley said he was devastated as he toured through homes and viewed the damaged from Tuesdays storm.

“When it hits your house that’s devastation, if it’s the only house hit, it’s still devastation to you and your family,” Governor Bentley said.

Residents are still in disbelief from the wreckage, but neighbors are helping one another to get back on their feet.

“That’s what Alabamians do, that’s what the people in this state do, they care about each other, they love each other and you see people all around, you see neighbors out here cleaning up the trees, they’re cleaning out the houses,” Governor Bentley said.

Bentley said it’s tragic times like this that help bring everyone together .

“As bad as it is to see all of this cleaning, the thing that I am so excited about is we had no loss of life and no serious injury here in the area,” he said.

And he credits that, to this safe room.

“I seriously believe that the only thing that saves lives are safe rooms,” Governor Bentley said.

Bentley has seen his fair share of tornadoes come through his state, and said he knows the importance of having storm shelters.

“We got 72 million dollars in mitigation money from the 2011 tornadoes, and I instructed Art Faulkner, my EMA Director to put 59 million of that into safe rooms,” Bentley said.
After approval, Governor  Bentley plans to have at least 300 storm shelters throughout the entire state of Alabama

Pickens County alone has a total of 14 community safe rooms and they can hold up to 100 people.

If anyone would like to make donations to help those still affected by the storm visit governor.alabama.org