CENTRE — Cleanup efforts were well underway in the Goshen Valley area Monday morning. Insurance adjusters traveled from house to house to speak with customers as bulldozers piled rubble from destroyed homes for burning and a crew from the local cable company reattached transmission lines to power poles set over the weekend.

No one in Cherokee County was killed by the massive tornado system that swept across central Alabama on April 27. But 27 homes were destroyed and another 35 received damage, according to Cherokee County EMA Director Beverly Daniel.

“That’s a total from both storms,” Daniel explained Saturday. “The one Wednesday morning and the other one later that day.”

Statewide, at least 248 people were killed in Wednesday’s storms. Thousands more were injured, including nearly 1,000 in Tuscaloosa. On April 30, President Obama arrived in the college town where nearly 50 people have been confirmed dead. Astonished by the scene confronting him, he declared, “I’ve never seen devastation like this.”

By Monday, Daniel was able to report that Cherokee County had been declared a disaster area by both the state of Alabama and the federal government. Several other counties in Alabama had already received federal disaster status.

The declaration, which came around 9 p.m. Sunday, cleared the way for those affected by the storm to apply for a wide array or relief from Washington, D.C. To find out more, call FEMA at 800-621-3362 or visit www.fema.gov.

During a meeting of county officials Monday morning in the County Administrative Building on Cedar Bluff Road, Probate Judge Melvyn Salter went around the room asking for comments from representatives of various local agencies.

Daniel thanked all the deputies and volunteer firefighters who pitched in to help reach injured residents in the hours after the storm hit the county.

“We would have been overwhelmed if it hadn’t been for them,” she said.

Daniel said disaster centers filled with supplies for those in need have been set up at the Goshen United Methodist Church near Piedmont and the gymnasium at the old Centre Middle School on Main Street. In March 1994, the Goshen church’s sanctuary was destroyed by a tornado on Palm Sunday that killed 20 and injured 90.

Red Cross volunteer Charlie Hincy told The Post the Centre relief center will be open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through at least May 14.

County Engineer Corey Chambers said he is still awaiting word from state and federal officials before announcing plans to begin pickup of rubble from roadways in front of homes or other structures that were damaged or destroyed by the tornado.

“Everything that is rubble from a home or a commercial site can be pushed up towards the right of way,” he said. “That does not include timber or brush.”

County sanitation officer Wayne Cochran said garbage trucks will spend the next several days running their regular routes and collecting as much storm debris as possible along with their regular loads of household garbage.

“When we figure out where we want to put dumpsters for additional clean up, Waste Management is ready to help with that,” Cochran said.

Cochran said he hopes to make an announcement about exactly where several large, roll-off dumpsters for debris collection will be placed sometime later this week.

Rep. Richard Lindsey was at Monday’s meeting and had information to share from a TVA conference call he had taken part in the night before.

“They are increasing their supply of electricity daily,” Lindsey said. “But they told me they may not be finished with their repairs until the middle of the summer.”

Lindsey also made the announcement that Cherokee County had received word of its status as a federal disaster area from FEMA officials.

Cherokee Electric Cooperative employee Wade Sprouse, who serves on the County Commission, said every substation in the county has been resupplied with power. He said anyone who still does not have electricity at their home or business should call the Cooperative at 256-927-5524.

Sprouse said KTH Leesburg Parts and Pemco, both in Leesburg, are among the large plants in the county that will continue to depend on generators to power their operations until TVA can further increase the voltage in lines supplying electricity to the county.

“We’re still 3-4 days away from having the major manufacturers back up,” Sprouse said.

Sheriff Jeff Shaver said the 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew he put in place last week will now be ratcheted back. According to WEIS Radio News, the curfew will now be in effect only in the storm-damaged areas of the county along highways 9 and 411.

As the meeting wound down, Salter suggested getting together in a month to conduct a review of the county’s response, which he categorized as above and beyond what many other areas of Alabama were able to achieve during the crisis.

“I think that’s a really good idea,” Daniel said. “We can go over what we got right and what we got wrong so we can do an even better job next time.”