Drone Footage Reveals Mass Destruction Caused by Tornado in Alabama (+Video)

The devastation in Selma stretches for miles in a diagonal path across the historic city. Several people sustained injuries, and at least one was serious enough to require transportation to a Birmingham, Alabama, hospital.

Hundreds of homes and businesses have shattered windows and roofs in their front yards.

Fallen trees and broken power lines hang over streets. At one point, 19,000 people in the area were without power.

Through all of the damage, though, Selma has reported no casualties. At least nine deaths have been reported across the rest of the state.

Selma’s downtown district is the place from which the late Amelia Boynton Robinson, a Selma voting rights strategist and civil rights movement matriarch, convinced King to get involved in the movement, hoping he would help nationalize the voting rights struggle. It’s where the late Georgia congressman and voting rights icon John Lewis was beaten nearly to death by state troopers as he crossed the Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965.

Some residents, though, wonder why the history of their city is being used to leverage help — why the people who lost their homes aren’t reason enough for others to care.

“Selma has a thriving history, but we’re in the present,” Miller said. “Yes, things can be lost, but we have archives where that history is preserved. Now we need to focus on our community, rebuilding and making sure everybody is OK. The historic part should just take a back seat.”