Tuscaloosa Tornado

I never thought I would be using the quiet hours of nap time to register for FEMA aid. I never thought my area would be declared a disaster or that I would see pictures of my neighborhood in the LA Times.

There are plenty of pictures available online and I will link up some of those at the end but for now I will just write about our experiences.

Last Wednesday, April 27, a line of storms went through my area in the morning. I think one tornado touched down in part of Tuscaloosa county and then we had a few hours of blue sky. It was a great day and we were outside for part of it. I had the radio on and the weather reports mentioned another line of storms that were coming through later that afternoon. Could be bad, possible tornado(es), have a safe place to go, etc. Yeah, yeah, yeah, heard it all before.

I continued to listen to the weather reports as the day wore on. Three storms developed and I turned the TV on to see the radar. There were confirmed tornadoes south and west of us so I sent Brian a message at work and asked him to come home early. He didn't even send me a message back. He just got up from his desk without saving what he was working on at the computer and left. Later I asked him why he came home and he said he didn't want me to be by myself (with the kids) if it did get bad. I am so thankful he was there with us.

The local channel we were watching has a camera on the top of a tall building downtown. As we were watching the live footage from this camera a tornado appeared. A large tornado. The weatherman started calling out street names and calling for people to take cover. Then they said 15th st. and the power went off. Brian told me to get the kids and get in the closet. We went to the closet and then I thought the boys might want their special blankets. We headed for their room and they were so slow to get what they needed. I realized we didn't have enough time to get anything else so we got in the closet and waited for Brian to come back. He did come in and when I saw his eyes I knew it was getting bad outside. He told me afterwards that he could see debris flying past the windows outside.

We were huddled in the closet and the wind was howling around the house. We never heard the typical freight train sound but we heard glass shattering, lots of popping noises and items getting knocked around inside and outside the house. Andrew asked me if we were going to die. I told him I didn't know but we could pray and ask God to help us. I think that is what I said.

It was over in about 30 seconds. Brian poked his head out of the closet and had a view of the back yard from the hallway via a window in our bedroom.

He said: Amy, all the trees are gone.

I didn't believe him. I thought he was exaggerating. But when we came out into the yard it became very obvious that part of the tornado had gone over us (this is a video shot as the tornado goes over the Forest Lake neighborhood where we live). Not the center of it but enough to tear up and knock down and break five 50-year-old pine trees around the house. And the miracle of 3 Forest Hill is that all those trees fell away from the house.

Brian went to go check on our neighbors and I made a couple of calls to let family know we were OK. I tried to let the boys know that it would look very different outside but I don't think I could have prepared them for the way their playhouse looked. My sister said it was like seeing their own house destroyed. They wept.

Today is the seventh day without power or gas. We are in a hotel, courtesy of our landlords. It is very difficult for me to drive through the streets around our house. There are a couple of the hardest hit I haven't been down yet. At least forty people died and many more are still missing in Tuscaloosa.

To read more about the Tornadoes: here, here and A pretty amazing story here