Remembering four years ago: Tornados

We'd had a round go thru that morning and then it got pretty outside. i was watching the radar online and told my office director that there were some major super cells forming in east mississippi and that i wasn't hanging around the office. He requested to close the office and caught some major flack, but told them we weren't going to be caught on the road or in the office. I got home and started following the radio reports from the haleyville to hsv storm. People started reporting objects falling from the sky where there were no storms. Then the power went out (from the storm that went thru cullman). It never even rained in hartselle. The next 4 days were weirdly nice being off the grid with no power.

It was very scary, as my youngest was a newborn baby and my husband was working late that night. So I had my oldest child and my newborn with me huddled in the hall bathroom.

I can't believe it has been 4 years already.

My daughter was a student at UA at the time and lived at University Village Apts which was down the road from Rosedale about a block. Her complex had very minor damage. A friend & classmate died in a apt complex about 3 blocks away from hers.

I was following it here on TideFans. The day before a tornado had demolished a friend's house in Vilonia, AR. To give you a personal tragedy - those three kids lost their mother (a former co-worker of mine and daughter of one of my best friends) to a drunk driver in 2008. Then there was another marriage, a quick divorce (another Mom gone), and their house blasted off the top of them in 2011. Their Dad was on "The CBS Evening News" the same day the big ones hit Tuscaloosa. I cannot even imagine their personal traumas (their ages in 2011 were 15, 13, and the one daughter is 8). So that was on my mind when the Smithville (MS) and Tuscalooa tornadoes hit the air.

I'm gonna be blunt: with my memory just of the news about it, I have no doubt I'd be in an institution somewhere if I ever experienced anything like that. The people of the state of Alabama have my undying love and respect for their endurance and rebuilding from that devastation. I'm not much of an emotional person but I cannot go the Bryant Museum and see that particular display of hope without just losing it emotionally. It's incredibly real, and I didn't see any of it up close and firsthand. I DID, however, see Smithville, MS only two months later - absolute devastation.

But this told me a lot about them, too, and I have my own version of this pic on Facebook:




Mine was taken on July 4th. The city had had one flag pole at the post office - which was gone (not the flag, the POST OFFICE!!!). They put the tattered Old Glory up on the only thing that still stood and boy did it wave proudly.


To all who suffered loss - my condolences and keep the Tuscaloosa spirit alive by rebuilding. And don't cease being kind just because the devastation is over, either.

spent the day getting word from family. had two small sets of family in cordova and holt and got word quick they were ok. the rest of the folks were just out of the paths. but growing up near phil campbell and hackle burg made it really hard to hear about those little towns. my grand dad's old house was 1 block away from the forest lake hit, so i was spending most of my day looking at tuscaloosa news' website and then calling and telling my dad what was going on (they lost power for several days)

I was talking to my mom on the phone after all of it when she says "there is something in the sky that looks like it is falling." Then she told me a very large piece of plywood just dropped in her front yard and then another and another and then a bunch of insulation. She lives in Blount County and there was no real damage around her.


My cousin lives in Trussville and he found several SAT tests in his yard from Tuscaloosa County.

Rough day. An EF-3 came within 2 miles of us as we hunkered down in my MIL's crawlspace. I thought I heard a long rumbling thunder from the southwest until it did not stop and I began to hear the clack clack of trees being thrown into one another and the noise grew louder and louder and louder before finally and thankfully beginning to fade toward the east. Shortly afterward we went outside and debris was raining down - dead mice, tree bark, twigs, leaves, insulation - it was very strange. Then the warnings and sirens sounded again. Yet another was on the way and touched down. Followed nearly the same path but wasn't on the ground at its closest point to us on approach. It did touch down on both sides of us. I was worried for many friends for days. Several had houses completely destroyed around them, but by some miracle or stroke of luck everyone I know was OK.

I was at work at Redstone until I said the heck with it, took leave and left around 3 pm. Passed in front of the tornado that went through Ruth and killed five people. I watched it cross the road in my rear view mirror trying to calm my wife down and was almighty glad I didn't take off work seconds or minutes later.

willie52 said:

I was at work at Redstone until I said the heck with it, took leave and left around 3 pm. Passed in front of the tornado that went through Ruth and killed five people. I watched it cross the road in my rear view mirror trying to calm my wife down and was almighty glad I didn't take off work seconds or minutes later.

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I understand that this thread is about the 2011 storms...but your story mirrors mine from the 1989 huntsville storm. I left work at 4 (normal time) and headed west until the guy on wdrm said there was baseball size hail in the city of Madison. I said to myself, lets try and skirt this storm to the south, so i turned around and hit the Parkway southbound. Several of the overpasses weren't built at that time and I can vividly remember sitting at the Airport road intersection...waiting on the red light...looking west at what turned out to be the wall cloud of that monster. I was literally 60 seconds ahead of it...

The morning started with sirens going off at 6 AM, and my wife and I huddled downstairs in the garage with our dog. That storm passed several miles south of us and didn't do very much damage. After we got to work in Cullman, we ended up going to one of our buildings in Cordova because it was hit by a tornado during that morning round. We got everything secured and left headed back to Cullman and by the time we made it back, the decision had been made to close and send everyone home. This was probably an hour or so before the tornado came through Cullman. We ended up at my wife's parents (who have a storm shelter) in Eva. Several times that evening we ended up in the storm shelter but there was never a tornado that passed very close.

The one that went through Cullman did go through Fairview just a few miles away from us and of course it is the one that went through Ruth, Hulaco, Arab and Union Grove. It passed a few miles from our house. Our building in Cordova was completely destroyed in the EF4 that came through there later in the day. The Cullman tornado got our office as well. The most vivid memories I have of the event were the aftermath. I remember driving into Cullman that next day and it looked like a war zone. I remember going back down to Cordova later that week and was in shock at the devastation.

I've said it before but one of the most surreal things about it for me was that night, going back home, and crossing the overpass in Arab going over Hwy 231 and looking north and seeing nothing but total darkness.

TideEngineer08 said:

The morning started with sirens going off at 6 AM, and my wife and I huddled downstairs in the garage with our dog. That storm passed several miles south of us and didn't do very much damage. After we got to work in Cullman, we ended up going to one of our buildings in Cordova because it was hit by a tornado during that morning round. We got everything secured and left headed back to Cullman and by the time we made it back, the decision had been made to close and send everyone home. This was probably an hour or so before the tornado came through Cullman. We ended up at my wife's parents (who have a storm shelter) in Eva. Several times that evening we ended up in the storm shelter but there was never a tornado that passed very close.

The one that went through Cullman did go through Fairview just a few miles away from us and of course it is the one that went through Ruth, Hulaco, Arab and Union Grove. It passed a few miles from our house. Our building in Cordova was completely destroyed in the EF4 that came through there later in the day. The Cullman tornado got our office as well. The most vivid memories I have of the event were the aftermath. I remember driving into Cullman that next day and it looked like a war zone. I remember going back down to Cordova later that week and was in shock at the devastation.

I've said it before but one of the most surreal things about it for me was that night, going back home, and crossing the overpass in Arab going over Hwy 231 and looking north and seeing nothing but total darkness.

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i went to hackleburg to help clean up about 3 weeks after the storms and i could not believe the devastation, i have never seen anything like it.

i think there was maybe one building in the entire town that wasn't wiped out. the scary part was seeing the destructive power of a EF5 tornado. there was no where to hide from it. i saw storm shelters and in ground basements blown to pieces. this picture from wikipedia is one of the more intact basements