American Scene

ALABAMA

Officials double-check storm death count

MONTGOMERY | Officials in Alabama are counting the number of dead again because they are worried some of the victims might have been counted twice.

The head of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday that getting an accurate count is difficult because some of the bodies are not whole. Currently, officials believe 236 people died in Alabama and 328 people were killed in all. That makes it the deadliest twister outbreak in since the Great Depression.

Emergency management director Art Faulkner says he is not sure when officials might get an accurate count, and they are still searching for possible victims. The largest death toll ever was March 18, 1925, when 747 people were killed in storms in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. In March 1932 in Alabama, 332 people died.

FLORIDA

Museum seeks items from raid

FORT PIERCE | The National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum was closed Monday, but the facility’s executive director already was trying to get memorabilia from the Navy SEALs’ operation to kill Osama bin Laden.

“I caught the president’s remarks Sunday night,” said Michael R. Howard, the museum boss and a retired Navy SEAL, “and I had an immediate gut feeling that our SEALs did the operation.”

On Monday morning, Mr. Howard’s suspicions were confirmed.

“Wheels are already turning to see what we can get,” Mr. Howard said. “Hopefully, we’ll get some artifacts quickly. The timing is good because we’ll be moving into our new building soon, which will be a great place to showcase the skills of the nation’s SEAL warriors.”

The museum on North Hutchinson Island in Fort Pierce is in the middle of an 8,400-square-foot expansion of the existing 5,000-square-foot facility. Construction on the $800,000 expansion began in March and should be completed by June, Mr. Howard said.

PENNSYLVANIA

School: No face paint over Osama

DAUPHIN | A Pennsylvania woman took her fifth-grade son out of school for the day after administrators decided his face paint marking the death of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was too disruptive for class.

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