One year later pain still fresh

Associated Press - Alabama residents are marking the anniversary of the April 27 tornado outbreak with prayerful ceremonies and tears.
    
A year after the onslaught of dozens of twisters killed at least 250 people in Alabama and more elsewhere in the South, federal researchers are completing a study of who died and where they were when it happened. Among the conclusions so far: Nearly half of the people who died had been advised to take shelter. Indeed, most of them did.

But many of the tornadoes were so fierce that few structures were able to withstand them.
    
Unlike in other tornado outbreaks, the largest group of people who died were in single-family houses - not mobile homes - the CDC analysis found.

Remembrances are planned across the state on Friday to recall the devastating storms that killed about 250 people and left thousands more without homes.
    
In Montgomery, Gov. Robert Bentley and other leaders will attend a ceremony at the Capitol. Some businesses that were hit by twisters have picked the anniversary as a reopening date.
    
The city of Tuscaloosa is planning an observance at the University of Alabama's coliseum, but some residents say the pain is still too fresh to attend. And the rebuilding will continue in many communities that were hit by the twisters.
    
Statistics show at least 3,200 people still lack permanent homes because of the tornadoes.

Information of Federal Study provided by: Mike Stobbe, AP Medical Writer