For those who haven’t heard, an EF4 tornado devastated Tuscaloosa (home of the University of Alabama) and suburbs of Birmingham yesterday afternoon. There are lots and lots of dead people (currently 150 or so in Alabama and more in other states), and many more missing. My niece was in a grocery store that took a direct hit in Tuscaloosa. They took shelter in a meat locker and she’s fine. The tornado passed a mile or so north of my house on the northeast side of Birmingham. I heard it pass.
Seeing a powerful tornado’s destruction in a rural area is impressive. Seeing it plow directly through the heart of an urban center is terrifying. U of A students are among the dead. They’ll be picking body parts out of the rubble for a long time.
Shit, I used to live in the middle of the tornado’s path. My old neighborhood is gone. Just completely, utterly absent.
I was just popping on to see if anyone had started a thread about this. I live in a small town in MS that close to Smithville (we’re all in Monroe Co.) and Smithville is pretty much just not there anymore. We were very lucky. My home has no damage but it was terrifying going over the TomBigBee yesterday morning. As I was getting ready to pass I looked up and a wall cloud just appeared and I saw something starting to swirl and all I could think was “if it gets me, I’m going in the river and I won’t make it out” so I did what you are NOT supposed to do, and floored it. I flew over the bridge and across town going 70 and I ran into my house to see my mom and grandmother sitting at the kitchen table. Apparently I was white as a sheet and as soon as I realized I was safe I had to try really hard not to vomit and cry. They were there because tree took out my grandparent’s kitchen. It’s pretty devastating, but nothing compared to Smithville and especially Tuscaloosa.
Next month I’m moving to an area in NE Birmingham (I’m sure it’s close to yours) and I was on the phone trying like hell to get my boyfriend (with whom I moving in) and no calls were going through and I really freaked out. Luckily everything was fine. I feel so incredibly lucky right now for both my home now, and the house I’ll be moving to. I didn’t lose anyone. There are so many right now that have. I saw on CNN that the unofficial count for tornadoes across the south yesterday is at 151. I don’t know what all counts as a tornado, though. That could include every twisted cloud there was.
I think my brother is still in shock. He graduated U of A, and spent a good ten years in T town. When we heard it hit I joked “Oh god - is Bryant-Denny standing?” but when the images started coming in, well, it’s been hard not to get somewhat emotional about it.
Glad you are safe. Can the Southern Dopers all be accounted for?
My offspring all live in Alabama, and they along with the grandlings are all safe and accounted for.
My eldest’s spousal-unit is an MD and he worked all night treating the wounded.
In fact, he is still at work.
According to his report, some of the bodies were delivered to the temporary morgue (a nearby church) on truck hoods.
The count of casualties will probably be at least 300.
And here in Athens, we got maybe 1/4 inch of rain and no winds above 20 mph.
What amazed me prior to the storm was that the Weather Channel was predicting a 9 (90%) for tornados in that specific area a full day beforehand. The death toll might have been even higher without that terribly ominous but useful forecast.
The pictures have been terrible. Hearts go out to all affected by this tragedy.
I and my family are fine–most of the really bad stuff went well north of us (we live right above the Florida Panhandle). We got a lot of high wind and some rain, no damages other than a yard full of tree limbs. I know I have much to be grateful for today.
The storm system that caused the damage in Alabama has, unbelievably, been felt all the way up here in western New York. The bridge to Canada here is shut down due to high winds, we’ve had several accidents (at least one fatal) due to the storm, and from my building here I can see another building which partially lost its roof about an hour ago.
Ever since I heard/saw it on The Weather Channel this morning I have been looking for verification of Stephanie Abrams’s statement that the supercell that hit Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Gadsden and other locations all the way to the Carolinas stayed together (whether or not it was on the ground the whole way) for something like 300 miles, which would surpass the record from 1925 in the tri-state disaster.
I know there are more important aspects of these events than their record-breaking status, but I thought that was a surprising fact – if true. Has anybody heard a similar evaluation of the strength of that cell?
There was a similar long-track cell that went all the way from the MS-TN border across Middle TN not long ago, and the forecasts we got in the Nashville area this week were that the conditions were right for the “Particularly Dangerous Situation” that was announced earlier and which came to pass in Alabama and other places to our south. The videos and photos of the destruction in Alabama and elsewhere make it clear that this April has been a mean month to survive and that too many people have failed to do so.
I can’t confirm it with a cite, Zeldar, but I have seen the same statistic. Also, meteorologists yesterday were saying that the supercell was a monstrous 50,000 - 60,000 feet tall. A true beast.
There are little shreds of pink fiberglass insulation all over the city. I found several pieces stuck to my car this morning, and have since noticed it littering the ground everywhere. I’ve also seen accounts of bank deposit slips from Tuscaloosa being found 115 miles away in Gadsden.
Best wishes to Alabama Dopers and those in other states who are affected as well. I imagine a lot of folks are offline still with power outages.
We were below the system here in Baton Rouge… we had some light storm activity on Monday night/early Tuesday, but today has been blissfully cool and bright.
Here is part one of an aerial (no sound except for that of the helicopter) done by the local ABC station. It is almost 9 minutes of following the path of the tornado. Here it is.
We talked to them about a minute late last night before their phone cut out, and she’s managed to get one text out today. Reported that their house is mostly ok, but their neighborhood is totally trashed and locked down - police lines across all the roads to keep looters out, or to keep people from driving over powerlines.
They’ve got no power, no phone service, and they can’t leave any way but on foot, (they were out driving around trying to get phone service in the storm last night before the really bad part hit, and after the twister struck the police wouldn’t let them drive back into their neighborhood - so their car is abandoned somewhere a few miles from their house.)
I have to stop myself from piling into the car and racing over there - nothing I could do would help, but I wish I could do something!
She’s just finished grad school in Tuscaloosa, and (as of the text today) hadn’t heard anything about any of her schoolmates.
I keep telling myself that the storm is over and I know she’s fine, but I really feel unhappy being out of touch like this.
