Anybody besides the hamsters get caught by this?
Confound it. Damn hamsters. Here’s the original post:
Last night, a large, cold Canadian front marched its way through the Southeast, pushing aside a very warm, wet air mass from the Gulf. It was 82 degrees in Montgomery yesterday. The Gulf was feeding moisture and heat straight up the leading edge of the front.
It all exploded violently.
I played a stupid game last night. My girlfriend and I drove back home to Huntsville, Alabama from Montgomery, Alabama. We stopped at a friend’s house in Birmingham to watch the Weather Channel. We saw a lethal line of enormous supercell thunderstorms marching in a line from Mississippi, right across our path home. Hook echoes were plentiful. There were tornadoes on the ground everywhere. We noticed, however, that there was a sizeable gap between one killer storm and the next, and if we could time it correctly, we had a better-than-even chance of shooting through between them.
We were successful. All we saw was some fairly heavy rain and lots of lightning. We went to bed last night, safe and sound, smugly self-satisfied.
I woke up this morning to find out that there are lots of people throughout the eastern half of the US who weren’t so lucky. Apparently, as many as 50 tornadoes touched down in the East yesterday, and while we were playing chicken with the most deadly storms on the planet, dodging tornadoes, at least 35 people died.
In Mossy Grove, Tennessee, which sustained a direct hit from a monster F4 or F5 tornado, there is a mile-and-a-half wide path of utter destruction, and 150 people are still missing.
One third of Carbon Hill, Alabama, a town I used to visit quite often for work, no longer exists. Three successive tornado strikes killed at least seven people.
There were also deaths in Pennsylvania, Mississippi, and Ohio.
Having lived in the path of tornadoes my whole life, I have become inured to the threat of them. That eerie, still feeling, the odd light, the sudden pressure change, the silence, and then the shrill air-raid-siren scream of the tornado horns are all part of life.
But I swear to God, I feel like an idiot for foolishly risking our lives last night, just so we could sleep in our own bed. I knew the severity of these storms. I saw the hook echoes. And I still drove through.
This afternoon, I’m going to try to find out where I can volunteer to help rebuild and provide some aid.
Ogre, while I didn’t cut it quite as close as you did, I also gambled last night. I was at my old church talking to their youth group last night and the meeting was over, but people were lingering. One of the parents came in saying there was a tornado warning for the area and suggesting people get home immediately. The tornados were in Ohio and I live in southwest Pennsylvania, but the trip home was 13 miles due west. My parents live about 5 miles from the church also west, but up on top of a hill. We saw a tornado once, from a distance but that’s it. I’m also welcome at their place any time.
I decided that since I could still see the moon and I had some patio furniture on my porch, I’d try to make it home. So here I am, driving east at 60 mph toward what I think are tornados moving west at 60 mph and telling myself as long as I can see the moon, I’m safe. I got home, moved the patio furniture into the living room, unplugged the computer, and called one of the people at the meeting to tell them I was safe. That’s when I turned on The Weather Channel. The tornados were still in Ohio, moving east at 15 mph, and weren’t due until after midnight. I wonder if God was laughing while I was driving nervously home.
Pittsburgh doesn’t get a lot of tornados, I think because of our terrain, but we can get very nasty windstorms. I’ve also seen the aftermath of a tornado and lived through the edges of a hurricane. It was a balmy night, so I slept with the window open last night, but I also slept with a flashlight beside the bed. The worst storms passed a fair distance north of Pittsburgh.
Ogre, if you slept smugly and foolishly safe last night, I slept equally foolishly scared last night, so I think on the whole things balanced out, at least with regard to the three of us. I’m glad you and your girlfriend are safe.
CJ
Just an update. An F2 tornado hit Mercer county, Pennsylvania. One person is dead, 16 injured, and 64 homes damaged. Judging by the footage on the evening news, I’d say “totalled” is more accurate than “damaged”. I’ll be saying prayers for all those who suffered losses last night.
CJ
Well, nothing much happened here in Louisville Ky, but EMS reported seeing a large funnel cloud near Bashford Manor, where (I think) my 7[sup]th[/sup] grade teacher, and by far my favorite teacher, lives. I was rather worried last night, but it never touched down luckily.
What’s a hook echo?
I dropped off little knarf at my ex’s in the Shoals Sunday night just before the first of the storms got there. I was able to stay ahead of the storm while heading back east (I live just south of Huntsville).
Unfortunately I had to turn south for a good stretch and it caught up to me.
Fortunately, I was right by my sister’s house when the sirens went off. So we sat around for about an hour watching the weather reports. When the first one passed through I scooted home real quick (10 minutes) and had about an hour before the next storm came through.
I didn’t have any problems where I am - didn’t lose power, no flashing clocks or anything like that.
The lightning was dancing all over the sky though. I spent some time on my balcony watching it after the first tornado warning came across for Knox county and I decided I didn’t need to be on the computer.
I think the bad ones were about 40 miles west of here. I barely heard any thunder, despite all the lightning, and it didn’t seem to rain all that much though. The wind was wild though.
I’ve been through a couple of tornadoes before. The April 1998 one in Nashville, then a couple when I lived just north of Jackson, MS from October 1998-November 1999. Those warnings always seemed to come when I was almost home after being on the road all week and I’d end up driving home when I wasn’t supposed to.
I spent the night in the basement, with my folks. We’ve always been careful like that.
I saw one of the April 98 tornados. I was caught in the open in my car, with no nearby shelter. :eek: I drove like hell.
I spent the night in the basement, with my folks. We’ve always been careful like that.
I saw one of the April 98 tornados. I was caught in the open in my car, with no nearby shelter. :eek: I drove like hell.
Anubis - hook echo.
Hey knarf, where do you live again? I’m in downtown Huntsville, just outside the Old Town district.
Yep, Columbus, OH resident checking in - we had no power for five hours.
Now that doesn’t sound too bad, you say.
Oh but it was, I reply.
My roommate’s boyfriend chose that evening to visit with his little brothers, 11 and 4. Have you ever tried entertaining an eleven-year-old and a 4-year-old in pitch blackness for five hours? There was a great deal of whining, screaming, and moaning, almost all of it coming from the brats. Holy mother of all things that are holy, I am never having kids.
-dippin “if you shine that flashlight in my eyes one more time…” dots
12 tornadoes in Alabama alone. Holy freaking shit.
Me, my family, my friends, and their respective families are fine, but a tornado DID touch down in my home county, plus there were some sighted above Tuscaloosa, I think. The guy in charge of all of us during the drill said that one was sighted above Greensboro Avenue.
We sat in the third floor hallway for a couple of hours. The lights only blinked off once.
I don’t know if there’s any damage in my hometown, and if there is, I don’t know how bad it is. I do have friends from Carbon Hill–two were with me last night–but like I said, their families are fine.
It just sucks that Carbon Hill lost their high school to a fire in June and now they’ve lost their elementary school to a tornado.
Yeah, we got a lot of wind and rain in Chillicothe, Ohio, but not much else. Power never went out, though, thank God.
I wish the best to anyone affected by this storm.
I live near the Ohio/Pennsylvania, Mahoning/Coloumbiana County border in Ohio and we were supposed to get a lot of the bad weather, but it never came. We did lose power for five or so minutes.
I wish the best to eveyone hit by this storm.
I had 2" hail at my house. Siding is pockmarked. Roof probably got some damage. Insurance company says it’ll likely be 2-3 days before someone can even call me.
StG
Im from manchester TN. It got preaty bad here for a little while sun. night. Most of the town was without electricity untill about 2 this afternoon. A ten year old boy who lived about 2 miles from my sister was killed and someone on the other side of town was killed as well, and about 25 or 30 people were injured. Mostly we had alot of home and tree damage, and a few wrecks on the interstate. Two big rigs smashed into each other and were flipped over at the exact same spot where the Gryahound bus/crazy man incedent happened last year, and I had to drive to work right in the middle of it. 
I feel for you guys. I was here in OKC may 3, 1999 during that F5.
Glad to hear you’re ok.
I live about 1/2 mile from where the F4 went through Van Wert County, Ohio. They are rightly praising the theatre manager for getting the audiences from the movies and putting them in the restrooms. 50 - 60 kids that had just finished watching The Santa Clause 2. The owner of the cinemas lost them, the drive-in next door, and his home beside that.
One plant here is completely gone. The plant I work at was completely shut down on Monday due to lack of power. My power was out until midnight Sunday, my mom, who lives 15 miles away near the Indiana state line, didn’t get hers back until 9 AM Monday. And there are still some people here that don’t have it back. My sister, OTOH, lives on just the other side of town from where the tornado went through, and they never lost power.
Here is a clickable thumbnail of a picture a local photographer took of the approaching tornado. And I keep thinking how lucky we were. An F4 and we only had 2 deaths. The loss of jobs and all the destruction will cause problems, but not nearly as many as there could have been. And there were a lot of people not nearly as lucky in other places.
Personally, I was driving back from a convention in Chicago and didn’t know anything about it until I got to my mother’s place at 8 PM. Having seen one tornado up close a few decades ago, I don’t really mind missing this one.
I was visiting a friend in Blount County, AL. He said we were about 30 miles from the tornados that went through southern Cullman County. I feel so bad for those folks in Mossy Grove and Carbon Hill. I’ve been through one tornado in my life. Fortunately all that happened to me was a tree being uprooted in my backyard and falling away from my house. Others in my neighborhood were not so lucky. Several homes destroyed. Needless to say, I get all kinds of antsy when I hear tornado watch/warning now.
I’m thankful that the tornados I got caught in last year only did some minor damage. I saw 'em coming and ducked inside a shopping mall, there’s a post about that here somewhere. The same storm also hit College Park, Maryland, where two were killed.
swampy, whenever we get severe stroms I tend to keep an eye on the clouds even if there is no watch or warning issued. Any localized rotation gets me antsy enough to call a TV station to let them know a possible funnel cloud is forming.