Glad to see people checking in. I’ve been thinking about all of you! The damage looks horrible.
I believe Ann Onimous is in Alabama, too (she changed her name in the past year, so some of you might not recognize her name). Also, Sauron and Aries28, right?
Any news from them?
We got hit in Huntsville too. Not as bad as other places, but still not pretty. The entire northern half of the state is without power, as rumor has it a power plant near Cullman got hit by the tornado too. SO and I have headed east to Atlanta and are holed up in a hotel, waiting things out. Cellphone towers are on the fritz and have been knocked out too – getting info in and out is really difficult. Many landlines are dead too.
Video of the tornado. Insane.
Hey,
If anybody runs across a fatality list, let me know. I have a few old coworkers that were last I heard in the Birmingham area.
Ann lives in Clinton, MS and last accounts I had she is okay. They had a tornado there a week or two ago.
We are also fine here in the Jackson area. There were 3 tornadoes in Lafayette County, where I and my kids have relatives (including their Daddy). All are safe and accounted for. One of the tornadoes came down the road my ex lives on, but missed his house. He spent the rest of the day in Pine Flat cutting up downed trees.
Our governor issued a state of emergency for 39 counties here. That is just insane. We had tornadoes from one end of the state to the other.
Added to that is the flooding occuring along the Mississippi River and we’re not liking April too much.
Glad to see Dopers posting in that they are allright. So very scary, and tragic. 
Mother Nature appears to be in a really bad mood this year. Massive earthquakes, Tsunamis, and widespread tornado outbreaks in the last couple weeks.
My prayers are with everyone.
Here in SE Missouri, we were in a near constant severe weather pattern for almost a week. Massive flooding in Poplar Bluff. My house is on high ground, but winds did rip a few shingles off the roof, and yes leaks, sigh.
I am not a meteorologist, but it is incredible how this storm system just hung around for days and days. We first got severe weather a week ago Tuesday of last week, and we still had some of the same yesterday. I think the rain total was close to 15-16 inches in my town.
Most of my family of origin lives between Birmingham and Huntsville. It took until this morning to learn that they’re all okay. My brother’s house in Huntsville caught a few trees, but he’s okay. No one has electricity or phone service, but they’re okay. My niece and nephew took their families to the in-laws’ houses, north of Huntsville, who have electricity. My mom is on an electric-run oxygen tank so my brothers are looking for something she can use until the power comes back on, which, I hear, could be a long time. I have to wonder why they couldn’t take HER to someone’s house with power! It’s friggin’ oxygen! Good grief.
My thoughts and sympathies go out to all in the storm’s path.
Hopefully this link works. These pictures of Smithville are incredible and moving.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.200729869964321.40958.138194566217852
I guess I’d describe myself as an extreme weather enthusiast. Last year I started following storm chasers live on TornadoVideos. It’s really cool - you can see where guys are on a weather map and bring up their dash cams to see what they are seeing. The Alabama storms were such a huge event that I also watched the ABC 33/40 stream live. They had an intermittent shot from a tower cam that showed the tornado as it was plowing through Tuscaloosa. Horrifying. 
My heart goes out to all who were affected by this monstrosity of Mother Nature.
p.s. SkyCam video here - scroll to it (can’t figure out how to get direct link)
collected videos here
We’ve had word that TVA has lost lines and that Brown’s Ferry has been shut down, which means that all of Madison county is without power right now. I’ve had word from friends there that they are largely ok. There are a ton of downed trees and wrecked houses in my town but we have electricity and the internet came back on last night. The towns of Phil Campbell and Hackleburg were whacked mercilessly, people who’ve been there in the last day say that Phil Campbell is just gone. A friend and I are going to join the cleanup crews on Sunday morning.
We are headed to Smithville today to help a friend pack up what she can find of her stuff and move it to a rental house. You have to go through a check point and have the resident come get you in, and I’m told to bring ID. I’m hearing lots of horror stories about finding people in trees, and people being found very far from where they were sucked up. I’ve heard buzzards are starting to move in. There are a lot of people unaccounted for - many more in Tuscaloosa, for sure. It’s getting hard to tell what is real and what is a story from FOAF. Doesn’t matter, I guess. All I can do is offer time. Ugh, it sucks. My brother is in Tuscaloosa now helping his friends.
It’s weird - we’ve had storms before but you always heard about these terrifying stories that ended with “and they barely got out” or “and the only thing left standing was the front steps” but now so many of these stories that start with “hey you remember ----?” end with “they died in it”. Very heartbreaking for the families.
All my relatives on my mother’s side are from the Birmingham area. They’re safe.
Y’know, I’ve personally seen two tornadoes, and where the funnels touched the ground, there were, oh, 20 yards wide.
They’re talking about funnels in Alabama that were a half a mile wide. Absolutely inconceivable.
Nashville’s Channel 2 weather blog includes this:
http://nashvillewx.com/2011/04/our-thoughts-prayers-to-all-affected-persons-in-the-deep-south/
I’m swearing off user comment threads for anything having to do with these storms. Seeing some hipster douche from Oregon post things like “People who live in these states are basically asking for it!” makes me think some very dark thoughts.
Roger that!
It’s no different than post-Katrina when people from up north said “our blizzards are worse!”. Yeah right, you generally still have your home and possessions after a blizzard. Some people are jerks.
Most folks are very sympathetic though, so I just ignore the dumbass ones.
@Shelli: I saw a news clip about that young boy who was found the next day blown 300 yards away. Incredible.
I found this list. Don’t know if it’s official or not. I hope your coworkers aren’t on it.
Is it me just feeling grief-stricken, or is anyone else irritated that this thread is mostly Southerners, with very few other Dopers offering so much as a kind word for what was, after all, an historic catastrophe and a monumental loss of life?
It’s a little of both, probably.