text: Beginning in the 1960s, the state's economy shifted away from its traditional lumber, steel, and textile industries because of increased foreign competition.Steel jobs, for instance, declined from 46,314 in 1950 to 14,185 in 2011.However, the state, particularly Huntsville, benefited from the opening of the George C.Marshall Space Flight Center in 1960, a major facility in the development of the Saturn rocket program and the space shuttle.Technology and manufacturing industries, such as automobile assembly, replaced some the state's older industries in the late twentieth century, but the state's economy and growth lagged behind other states in the area, such as Georgia and Florida.21st century In 2001, Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Roy Moore installed a statue of the Ten Commandments in the capitol in Montgomery.In 2002, the 11th US Circuit Court ordered the statue removed, but Moore refused to follow the court order, which led to protests around the capitol in favor of keeping the monument.The monument was removed in August 2003.A few natural disasters have occurred in the state in the twenty-first century.In 2004, Hurricane Ivan, a category 3 storm upon landfall, struck the state and caused over $18 billion of damage.It was among the most destructive storms to strike the state in its modern history.A super outbreak of 62 tornadoes hit the state in April 2011 and killed 238 people, devastating many communities.Geography Alabama is the thirtieth-largest state in the United States with of total area: 3.2% of the area is water, making Alabama 23rd in the amount of surface water, also giving it the second-largest inland waterway system in the United States.About three-fifths of the land area is part of the Gulf Coastal Plain, a gentle plain with a general descent towards the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.