re: The 30/30 made me think.. Never forget Apr 2011

quote:

---

Tornado Alley that runs through Tuscaloosa to Pleasant Grove is unreal.

---

No joke! I live in the Bessemer area and we had two VERY close calls 4/27/2011, morning and afternoon. Had another fairly close call in January 2012 with the storm that hit Oak Grove then the Trussville area. Finally got hit hunkering down at UAB Med West earlier this year by the tornado that passed over the camera mounted on the hospital. It is unreal as you stated!

quote:

---

there really is no feeling like going through one of those.

---

I am changed forever. Every time the wind blows hard, I get a little nervous.

I was in my office on campus at UA. All of the sudden a student pops in and tells my officemate and I that we need to GTF out and get to a safe place because there was risk of a tornado. We huddled down in a safe place in the bottom floor. Someone had a laptop and was streaming coverage of the weather and we sat there and watched live as the tornado came through. I remember seemingly being able to hear it pass (we were on the south side of campus). I stayed on campus until late at night. There were people outside of the dorms crying their eyes out because either they knew someone who had been killed or they couldn't reach someone who might have been. The campus was very dark and eerie. I found several people wandering around lost that had no idea where they were. I did not have a clear picture of what had happened across the state until I got home and was able to follow the coverage in full. I had some idea from talking to people on the phone, but it still didn't give me an accurate picture.

In addition, I was very familiar with the town of Phil Cambell and it was disturbing driving through there after. Along a road that used to be lined with trees you could now see miles. And the destruction.

I was out in the shite chasing that day. One of the most violent twisters I have ever seen. The worst part was watching the city I had come to know and love get torn apart. The thing had so much debris flying around it I should have known about the tremendous loss of life it was causing. But when you are caught up in the moment with your adrenaline pumping, you don't feel anything but excitement. I felt no fear. Just pure excitement.

I still remember that...such a sad day

Not to take away from this event but I would like to share my story with a similar experience.


I remember sitting in my house that day watching all the live coverage of the tornadoes that hit Alabama on April 27th. My mom and my aunt are from Cullman and seeing the tornado come through and devastate the town I once lived in was very emotional. Still to this day very hard to watch the videos of it.


However little did I know that the very next month on May 22nd 2011, my life would change forever. I was living in Joplin at the time the "monster" hit. That storm killed 158 people including my neighbor and his girlfriend, several of my friends, and two of my coworkers. My house was located on S Monroe Ave between W 26th and W 29th streets which is only a few blocks away from St. John's Medical Center on the SW side of Joplin. I was in college at the time and I lived with three other guys, only one of my roommates was home with me at the time, the rest were at work.

I remember very vividly that around 1:30 in the afternoon I saw on TV that a tornado watch had been issued but didn't think too much of it because we are frequently put under tornado watches that time of year. I went outside and did all my yard work and by the time I was finished, the sky had become very dark and the wind had picked up. I had just finished putting my truck up in the garage as one of my roommates left for work and I remember him saying to me it looked like we might get a tornado warning soon but I dismissed it because we've always been put under tornado warnings but nothing ever happens. Sure enough, not 10 minutes later a tornado warning was issued for Jasper County and the sirens went off. About 20 minutes later, my roommate and I are watching the news coverage of the storm and hear that a tornado had touched down just SW of the city limits, about 6 miles away, and was coming towards Joplin. The house we were in was a single story home, but had a basement with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a game room in it. By this time my roommate and I went down into the basement and turned on the tv.


About two or three minutes later the meteorologist on tv said the tornado had evolved into a large wedge tornado and was coming up on S Schifferdecker Ave which was only a mile away from where we were. So we got some pillows and a mattress out of one of the bedrooms and we booked it into the bathroom and got in the bathtub and put the mattress on top of us to cover us. As soon as we get in the bathtub the power goes out and the house starts shaking violently, the pressure dropped and I remember this deafening roar which sounded like a fighter jet's engines right outside the house. I could hear glass breaking and I remember grabbing on to my roommate and holding on for dear life. I remember thinking that this was it and that I was going to die. I had never been so scared before in my entire 24 years on this planet.

After what seemed like minutes, the roaring went away and the house stopped shaking. I remember getting out of the bathtub and trying to open the bathroom door but it wouldn't budge. After a few minutes of pushing the door with my roommate we finally get the door open enough for us to get through it and the whole downstairs basement was trashed with debris and the ceiling had collapsed down into it. We make it through the debris and up the steps to where the rest of the house should be and its all gone. We could see nothing but sky at the top of the stairs. The entire house and every house in the neighborhood was gone. The only thing left of our house was the downstairs basement, the concrete foundation, and the concrete garage floor where my truck was parked. I remember it being eerily quiet, no noise whatsoever when we emerged from the house. I remember looking to the east and I could see the hospital which is about four blocks away and I could see that it was completely destroyed. Before, there was a large wooded area between my street and the hospital that obstructed your view and you couldn't see the hospital but every single tree was gone. I just remember the complete and total devastation that was around me that seemed to go for miles in every direction I looked. I'll never forget that day and I'm still haunted day and night about it. Sometimes I'll be having a normal day and something will remind me of that experience and I just break down emotionally. I especially have a bad time when we get bad storms here and the sirens go off or when they test the sirens each month. The mental scarring I and many others in Joplin have will never be healed. That day didn't end at that point, the recovery process took a long time. My roommate and I were up for the next several days clearing debris, helping people escape from being trapped in their homes, transporting injured people, recovering bodies, serving food, and providing water for people. The community came together to help one another like I've never seen before and the amount of support from people and communities in other states and even other countries was truly remarkable.

The only thing that saved our lives that day was the fact that the bathroom in the basement was located under the garage floor. Had it been anywhere else, then the ceiling would have collapsed on top of us and I wouldn't be here today.


I moved away after that and have lived in Arkansas with my family since. I went back to Joplin a year after the tornado hit and it was very emotional for me. I attended the anniversary ceremony the city held and I could see everyone was still dealing with the whole event. I drove around the city that day and you could still see areas especially around W 26th, E 20th, and areas around Range Line Rd that are empty lots of where homes and business used to be. With new homes and business built next to them operating normally. The people in Joplin are doing their best to move on but that day will always be a part of their lives.


Jeff Piotrowski video of tornado - Very emotional

Thanks for sharing your story.

I was probably 200 yards from the path of destruction on 15th street right near Central High School. If that storm has moved to it's left I probably wouldn't have survived. I was in my GFs apt, poorly made, would have been absolutely destroyed. We had no clue how bad it was, the power had gone out about 2 hours before the storm hit Ttown. The last report we had heard was it was heading towards Northport. We didn't think it would be that bad. I remember going outside when it was close and seeing huge pieces of whatever flying around the sky and knowing it was far, far worse than I had thought. I freaked out, grabbed my GF and we got into a closet.

I wanted to drive around after to see the damage. Once I crossed the train tracks and had a clear view down 15th I nearly lost my breath. It was like nothing I've ever seen. To give any kind of example, imagine the street and surrounding areas were just shelled by artillery for 10 mins. It looked like a warzone. I parked my car and started waking towards my apt near Snow Hinton park. I didn't know the path of the storm then and I wanted to see if my place got hit. Luckily it didn't. There were about 6 or 7 huge student apt complexes that storm could have hit. Hundreds would have died if that happened. I don't know how, but it missed all of them.


Walking around the neighborhood near the old Full Moon was an experience I will never forget. Hearing screams of desperate family and friends looking for loved ones amongst the wreckage, smelling the gas, watching the power lines spark in the streets and cars flipped on their roofs slowly spinning. It was beyond surreal. From that day forward, tornado sirens bring it all back to the front of my mind. One of the oddest things I can remember about that day was how beautiful it was after the storm passed. Blue sky peaceful, calm and warm. It was so at odds with the chaos and destruction surrounding me.

The following weeks were stressful. A curfew. National Guard patrolling the streets at night with hummers and automatic rifles. The looting was bad. I had friends who had to move out of their place in daylight with shotguns in hand to deter potential trouble. Apt complexes security systems were down. People were on edge and nervous. Despite all that, the outpouring of love and support was touching. So many fire and cop cars from not only from all over the state, but the south. So many volunteers. People giving and giving. People who had nothing, out helping someone else who had lost it all. It was an amazing display of humanity. It's what I love most about this country. After tragedy, we don't pull apart we pull together. I saw the same thing, on a much larger scale, for 9/11. I'll never forget that day in April. No one living in Tuscaloosa at that time will.

I live in Vestavia, and we didn't really get hit. I think there was some straight line wind damage to old trees, but nothing like Tuscaloosa and north Birmingham. I was working in Alabaster at the time, and they sent us all home early after the reports from Tuscaloosa were coming out. We camped out in my mother in law's basement and still had power and could watch James Spann. I remember trying to send texts out to family and it taking a half hour or more to hear back. Voice calls wouldn't go through at all. That night, we were all fine. Eventually went back home and our house was fine. Just some limbs down, but nothing big.

A few days later, actually on May 5th, a group I worked with volunteered with Samaritan's Purse to help clean debris in the Pleasant Grove and Forestdale areas. I have a ton of pictures from that day. We all gathered at a church in Pleasant Grove that morning, ate breakfast, and sat through a safety briefing about working around chainsaws and being on roofs that may be damaged enough to fall through.

We all left and followed along in a caravan to a neighborhood not far away. The houses on the right side of the street were still standing, and some already had tarps up on the roof. Half of the upper level of one was missing, but there was still some structure there. On the left side of the street was nothing but piles of rubble, empty slabs where the house had once been, and just a huge mess. We were not equipped to move stuff like that, but instead were focused on downed trees and things that could be cut into smaller pieces with chainsaws. I remember walking around this one house with a basement. We were standing at the edge, looking down into it. Most of the house had blown away from it, and there wasn't much debris in there. Just furniture that was there and a lot of splintered wood and broken glass. I remember seeing the staircase going down into it still intact. And a small bathroom down there was fine. But the entire rest of the house, gone.

The strangest thing is that the house next door was untouched. There were a few loose shingles, a cracked window, and the chain link fence was still standing, less than 20 feet away from this complete destruction of the house next door. It just gives you an image of how powerful the storms are right in the tornado, but a short walk away the house was untouched.

After lunch we left that neighborhood to go help in another town. We spent the afternoon clearing trees and downed limbs. There was more of the same there. Basements and slabs remaining, and top halves of houss torn off from the ground floor. There were some huge pines that had been knocked down, and crashed through the bedroom in one house. We spoke with the homeowner who told us that it where her daughter usually sleeps, but she was down in the basement with the rest of the family when it struck. She said there isn't a good way to describe the sounds, the pressure, and the chaos. She just remembers her husband trying to yell something to them, but the roar was so loud that she couldn't hear him yelling in the same room as them. Several of the people we talked to had lost friends and neighbors.

My daughter was in preschool and they had their spring program that night. A co-worker had rode with me since we both had to leave a little early. Her son had something, probably a ballgame, and my daughter's program. We had been chatting on the ride out that morning. We rode in complete silence for the 45 minutes it took to get us back to the church and to her car. I was just so numb from all I saw that day that I kind of zoned out. I don't remember anything about her program. I was exhausted from the hard work all day, but it felt like I was just in some kind of stupor. I can't imagine what everyone went through.