Replies to post #138456 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[teapeebubbles]

Twister outbreak is second deadliest in US history

Some loot, others rush to help; experts estimate insurance losses at up to $5 billion

[F6]

"Debris from Tuscaloosa was recovered in Rome, Ga., 178 miles away."
-- South's 'super tornado' outbreak may be worst ever in US history
Storm forensics experts have begun to put into historical perspective the massive twister outbreak that hit Alabama and six other Southern states. The Tuscaloosa twister alone may register as the most powerful long-track tornado in US history.
April 30, 2011
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0430/South-s-super-tornado-outbreak-may-be-worst-ever-in-US-history [with comments] [and see/compare (items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=62428465 and preceding]


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Tornado outbreak across South amazes meteorologists

Wednesday's historic tornado outbreak in the South will go down in the record books and will be studied and analyzed for years to come by meteorologists and other researchers, an expert said Thursday.

FROM STAFF REPORTS
Published: April 29, 2011

Wednesday's historic tornado outbreak in the South will go down in the record books and will be studied and analyzed for years to come by meteorologists and other researchers, said Rick Smith, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Norman Forecast Office.

“We don't even realize the full scope of what happened yet,” Smith said. “To have one tornado as strong as the one that hit Tuscaloosa (Ala.) is rare, but to have several of them going on at the same time and traveling such large distances is exceptionally rare.

“As a meteorologist watching the event unfold through streaming TV broadcasts from the area, Twitter feeds and news blogs, you're amazed at what's happening from a scientific perspective, but at the same time overwhelmingly shocked by the power of the storms and the devastation and loss of life they brought.”

Smith grew up around Memphis, Tenn., and worked for the weather service's office there.

“Tornadoes are not unusual in that part of the country, and while it doesn't happen often, they have significant severe weather events that cause big impacts,” he said. “The April 27 outbreak is far beyond anything that region has seen in a very long time.”

Smith said the mix of weather ingredients that came together Wednesday was as volatile as it gets for tornadoes: Extremely unstable air ahead of an intense upper level storm system set the stage for rapid storm development and intensification. Parts of the area endured multiple waves of dangerous supercell storms, with some locations experiencing several tornado warnings.

“This is a reminder that it's not a question of if we'll see tornadoes in Oklahoma, but when,” Smith said. “Think about what you would do if a tornado was moving toward your home, business, school, church, car — what would you do to stay safe?”

©2011 NewsOK.com

http://newsok.com/tornado-outbreak-across-south-amazes-meteorologists/article/3562949 [no comments yet]


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"The erratic blast of tornadoes took out whole towns, erasing their unique ways of life. In Hackleburg, Ala., two tornadoes[?][I think it was just the one tornado that hit the town itself, see the item next below] killed 29 residents and wiped out 100 homes, three schools, the police and fire stations and the town's biggest employer, the Wrangler clothing factory."
-- Disaster, loss at every turn in wake of tornadoes
Relief workers struggle to get aid to displaced people in seven Southern states and survivors search what's left of homes -- if they can reach them -- for keepsakes. Memorials are planned Sunday for four University of Alabama students killed by tornadoes.
April 30, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-0501-alabama-tornado-20110501,0,5538230.story [with comments] [and see the two 'Hackleburg Tornado Damage Aerials' vids in the post to which this is a reply (about 2/3 of the way through, the fifth and sixth of the eight 'Damage Aerials' vids)]

---

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BIRMINGHAM AL
115 AM CDT SUN MAY 1 2011

[...]

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS WILL CONTINUE THE ASSESSMENT
OF STORM DAMAGE FROM A TRAGICALLY HISTORIC DAY OF TORNADIC ACTIVITY
AND SEVERE WEATHER ACROSS CENTRAL ALABAMA ON WEDNESDAY APRIL 27TH. A
NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED STORM DAMAGE EXPERT WILL CONTINUE ASSISTING US
IN EXAMINING THE LOCATIONS OF THE MOST EXTREME DAMAGE TO ENSURE WE
PROVIDE THE MOST ACCURATE ASSESSMENT OF THIS EVENT AS POSSIBLE.

...SURVEY RESULTS TO DATE WITH 13 TOTAL CONFIRMED TORNADOES...

...EVENT OVERVIEW...

THERE WERE TWO WAVES OF WIDESPREAD SEVERE WEATHER. THE FIRST MOVED
THROUGH DURING THE EARLY MORNING HOURS ACROSS NORTHERN PORTIONS OF
CENTRAL ALABAMA PRODUCING WIDESPREAD DAMAGING STRAIGHT LINE WINDS
AND ISOLATED TORNADOES. THE SECOND WAVE INVOLVED NUMEROUS SUPERCELL
THUNDERSTORMS AND PRODUCED LONG LIVED...STRONG TO VIOLENT TORNADOES
ACROSS THE NORTHERN TWO-THIRDS OF CENTRAL ALABAMA...WITH WIDESPREAD
AND CATASTROPHIC DAMAGE IN SEVERAL LOCATIONS. AT THIS TIME ALL
RATINGS ARE PRELIMINARY.

[...]

TORNADO 5...HACKLEBURG TORNADO (MARION COUNTY)

PRELIMINARY DATA...
EVENT DATE: APRIL 27, 2011
EVENT TYPE: EF-5 TORNADO
ESTIMATED PEAK WINDS (MPH): GREATER THAN 200
INJURIES/FATALITIES: AT LEAST 25 FATALITIES. NUMEROUS INJURIES.
EVENT START LOCATION AND TIME: 34.0880/-88.1328 AT 305 PM
EVENT END LOCATION AND TIME: 34.3109/-87.7858 AT 328 PM
DAMAGE PATH LENGTH (IN MILES): 25.2 MILES IN MARION COUNTY
DAMAGE WIDTH: 3/4 MILE
NOTE: CONTINUED INTO THE TENNESSEE VALLEY

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS SURVEYED DAMAGE ACROSS MARION
COUNTY IMPACTING THE HACKLEBURG AREA. IT HAS BEEN DETERMINED THAT THE
DAMAGE WAS CONSISTENT WITH A VIOLENT TORNADO. WINDS WERE ESTIMATED
GREATER THAN 200 MPH. THE TORNADO APPEARED TO TOUCHDOWN SOUTHWEST
OF HAMILTON NEAR HIGHWAY 19 AND COUNTY ROAD 22. TREE DAMAGE WAS
NOTED IN THIS AREA. THE TORNADO WIDENED CONSIDERABLY AND BECAME
DEADLY AS IT MOVED ALONG HIGHWAY 43 SOUTHWEST OF HACKLEBURG. THE
TORNADO MOVED INTO HACKLEBURG WHERE SEVERAL SUBDIVISIONS WERE
DESTROYED. THE HACKLEBURG HIGH SCHOOL AND THE WRANGLER PLANT WERE
DESTROYED. THE TORNADO MOVED NORTHEAST AND GENERALLY PARALLELED
HIGHWAY 43 AND MOVED TOWARD PHIL CAMPBELL WHERE SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE
CONTINUED. ALONG THE DAMAGE PATH, THOUSANDS OF TREES WERE
DOWNED...SEVERAL HUNDRED STRUCTURES WERE DAMAGED, AT LEAST 100 OF
THESE STRUCTURES WERE COMPLETELY DESTROYED AS MANY HOMES WERE
LEVELED.

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS...ALONG WITH THE FOREMOST
EXPERT IN STORM DAMAGE ASSESSMENT REVIEWED THE DAMAGE IN HACKLEBURG
IN MARION COUNTY. THE MAIN INDICATORS OF HACKLEBURG HAVING EF-5
DAMAGE IS THE TOSSING OF VEHICLES UPWARDS OF 150-200 YARDS...ONE
WELL BUILT HOME WITH 4 SIDES BRICK WAS COMPLETELY LEVELED AND THE
DEBRIS FROM THE HOME WAS TOSSED TO THE NORTH OVER 40 YARDS...AND
THERE WAS LARGE AMOUNTS OF WIND ROWING...THE STREWING OF BUILDING
MATERIALS IN STRAIGHT LINES...AROUND THE CITY OF HACKLEBURG.

[...]

http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=BMX&product=PNS&issuedby=BMX [so this one joins the Smithville, MS storm as (still only) the second one I'm aware of that they've broken down and admitted was an EF-5 -- they've still got the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham/et al at "AT LEAST EF-4" -- which is utterly ridiculous, given both the aerial damage photos and vids from Tuscaloosa in the post to which this is a reply, and "NOAA releases aerial imagery of Tuscaloosa, Ala. tornado damage", http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110430_aerialimages_tornadoes.html ( http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/pdfs/NOAA%20Tuscaloosa%20Flyover%20Low-Res.pdf , hi-res images available for .zip-file download) -- . . .]


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Major Tornado Outbreak Impacts Southeast U.S. - April 26, 2011

Uploaded by NOAAVisualizations on Apr 29, 2011

A major tornado outbreak of historic proportions impacted portions of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia on Wednesday. More than 150 reports of tornadoes were received on Wednesday, with the majority across northern Mississippi and Alabama. Widespread destruction, loss of life, and substantial injuries have been reported from numerous strong to violent long-lived tornadoes crossing areas from Jackson, Miss., to Birmingham, Ala. Tornadoes have produced severe damage in Tuscaloosa and other locations in Mississippi and Alabama..

This movie shows the rapid scan infrared imagery from the GOES-East weather satellite from April 26-28, 2011. During severe weather events, such as the past few days, NOAA places GOES into rapid scan mode, taking imagery every 5-15 minutes instead of every 30 minutes to provide forecasters the extra needed information that they need on rapidly evolving situations. An additional still image shows the storm system on April 27, 2011 at 2215z using GOES East visible imagery. The overshooting tops associated with severe storms and tornadoes can be seen over Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp2HTnxBmkI


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Greg Carbin: On call at NOAA’s storm center


Greg Carbin

By Jason Samenow
Posted at 02:45 PM ET, 04/29/2011

Greg Carbin is the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman, Okla., which has 43 employees, including more than 20 meteorologists. This federal center issues forecasts and watches for severe thu nderstorms and tornadoes across the entire United States.

In his job, Carbin reaches out to reporters, emergency managers, and private and government meteorologists to provide them with reliable information and messages about severe weather. I talked with Carbin about his experience during Wednesday’s devastating tornado outbreak in the South.

*

Q. Describe what Wednesday was like at the Storm Prediction Center.

We’ve been extremely busy. This active pattern we’ve been in for the whole month. We’ve had a lot of events already. We’ve been looking ahead at what could be devastating events.

But Wednesday was a quiet day in terms of interacting with the media. It was kind of the lull before the storm. It was kind of eerie.

But when I looked at the weather maps, it was screaming there would be a significant severe weather outbreak within hours, especially in Mississippi/Alabama. When I did interviews, I started using words and language I’ve never used before, like “significant long-track tornadoes” and “violent tornadoes” — words designed to make people pay attention.

Do you think you played up the risk enough?

Yes. What we try to do is ramp up in communicating the risk. It’s very difficult to pull back cry-wolf forecasts. What works best is a gradual approach. Otherwise, you have the potential to warn too often.

Why has this tornado season been so bad?

What’s really occurred in April 2011 is a convergence of circumstances, some predictable, some not. We know April/May are active months for severe weather. With that as a starting point, superimpose an atmospheric pattern that favors storm development over the central U.S. That’s essentially what we’ve seen – an active jet stream .?.?. that’s remained [stationary]. The atmosphere does that sometimes.

What about the set-up in the atmosphere Wednesday led to such a severe, historic outbreak?

The devil’s in the detail. We know that the atmospheric can be transitory. Occasionally what you’ll see is the tendency for a large scale trough [or dip in the jet stream] to center in middle in country and you have perturbations – disturbances moving through the trough - that then prime the pump — each system will tap moisture from Gulf of Mexico, setting up the atmosphere to be extremely unstable.

Once you’ve primed the pump with the leading systems, then you bring in the big intense upper level system accompanied by extreme wind shear… setting the stage for a major outbreak with this kind of pattern.

The rapid succession of intense perturbations pivoting through the large scale trough was interesting and unusual. It was very unusual to see the same place hit two nights in the row

Should we expect a continuation of active severe weather?

There will be tornadoes in May. But to use April as a predictor for activity in the month of May will fail. .?.?. The correlation between April and May tornadoes is almost nonexistent.

I think we’re in a fuzzy period, in a very gray area with respect to the oscillations and their role in tornadoes at this time of year.

How well do you think SPC did its job? Did it provide sufficient warning and lead time?

Let me preface by saying I’m very sympathetic to what Mississippi and Alabama have to be dealing with in the coming weeks. The loss of life is very humbling to see. We do this work because we don’t want to see that.

The messaging and the forecast was good. We did our job and did it as well as we could given the technology we have. It’s mind-boggling to contemplate how far we’ve come in forecasting since the Super Outbreak in 1974. The advances are amazing.

We want to figure out what we can do to better get the word out. There are many unknowns about the circumstances that led to the fatalities. We need to know why people died and how.

© 2011 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/greg-carbin-on-call-at-noaas-storm-center/2011/04/29/AFGJK1EF_blog.html [with comments]


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In twister's path, a struggle for survival

By ADAM GELLER
AP National Writer
Posted on Saturday, 04.30.11

PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. -- All morning at work, the boss' wife stared at the storm alerts flashing across the television screen and fretted. By 2:30 p.m., when they closed the restoration shop early and sent employees home, Jonathan Ford paid little mind to the sunshine overhead.

Fear of weather was playing havoc with his day. Ford had been hearing tornado warnings since he was a kid. And though he'd always done what he'd been told and sought out shelter, the 21-year-old found it hard sometimes to take the alerts too seriously.

But this warning, in addition to cutting work short, had also cancelled his night classes at Jefferson State Community College. That left Ford in his pickup, with instructions from his mother to stop only for bread and dog food, then come straight back to their neighborhood of towering oaks and neat brick homes in the rolling hills west of Birmingham. Dinner would be waiting in the microwave, he knew. And the dogs, Smokie and Ginger, would no doubt be glad to see him.

Across the South, in thousands of homes like the Fords', the hours of repeated tornado warnings had seeded a strange kind of tension: well-founded and very real fears pushing up hard against a tempting illusion - one encouraged by the momentarily gentle afternoon weather and unexpected free time - that the state of alert might turn out to be nothing at all.

In Rainsville, Ala., to the northeast, Donald Tidmore and his family sat down to an early dinner of taco salad that still left him with time for a nap on the couch. In the town of Phil Campbell, Ala., Gloria Butts worked on her taxes, waiting for her husband, a pastor, to come home from church. Further east in Barnesville, Ga., Dennis and Nealy Strom tucked their two children in to bed and settled under the covers to watch the news, reassured by reports that the worst would pass them by.

Evening had come early, under Alabama skies blue enough to inspire a tune.

But the darkest hour was just minutes away.

---

With the tornado warnings gaining urgency, the Fords' next-door neighbors on 12th Street, teachers Debra and Rick Patterson, also got off from work early.

Alabama's high school baseball playoffs were starting and Rick, coach of the Hueytown Gophers, had planned an afternoon practice for his team. But the storm had left him with little choice but to cover the field with a tarp and hope for the best. Instead of heading home to meet his wife, he drove to the hotel in Bessemer where they'd been staying since early March, ever since a kitchen fire forced them out. Just this week, city inspectors had given contractors the go-ahead to start renovations that would get them back home. But for all the inconvenience, the fire had taught Debra Patterson a life lesson: You could lose material possessions and still come out whole.

Now, in their room at the Fairfield Inn, the Pattersons turned on the television and shared the hotdogs Debra had picked up on her way, paying closer attention as the promised clouds began to blot the sky. About 4:20 p.m., a newscaster announced that a powerful storm cell was bearing down on Tuscaloosa, about 45 miles to the southwest. Debra immediately called to warn her daughter, Stacy, a sophomore at the University of Alabama.

"Baby, you have to go downstairs," Debra told her daughter.

At about the same time, on the second floor of the Charleston Square Apartments eight blocks from the Alabama campus, Daniel Mulder, a 24-year-old senior at the university, studied quietly for the final exam in cell biology final while his wife, Rachael, a first-year nurse, slept off the wear and tear of her night shift at the hospital.

Mulder had heard Tuscaloosa's tornado warning sirens go off before. Nothing ever seemed to come of it, so he wasn't particularly concerned when they began sounding yet again. He looked out the window: sunny and calm.

Not far away, in Tuscaloosa's Alberta City neighborhood, Roosevelt and Maggie Lee were tracking those same warnings. The Lees had been married for less than three weeks and Roosevelt, a 47-year-old minister, had moved from Selma to the campus town to be with his new bride.

From inside the wood-frame house they share with Maggie Lee's daughter and two granddaughters they could hear the wind begin to swirl across the roofline and around the windows.

At home in Pleasant Grove, Jonathan Ford ate the chicken and noodles his mother, Beverly, had set aside for him. When she left to take shelter at her boyfriend's home because it had a basement, Ford told her he'd stay put to take care of the dogs. He settled in to the reclining chair to watch the television news of the storm and listened with new urgency at reports that Bessemer was in the crosshairs. He called his girlfriend, Tara Rudloff, at her home near there.

"It's about to hit you all. Take care," Ford told her. "I love you."

Minutes later, hail began pelting the Ford house, making it sound like someone was throwing rocks against the windows.

At the same time, across the state in Rainsville, Donald Tidmore left work at the Heil garbage truck factory under a calm, partially sunny sky. Just as the family sat down to dinner, the power went out and they ate in shadows. But there seemed little to worry about. Tidmore fell asleep on the couch, while his stepson, Wells, went to his room and texted with friends.

The warnings back in Tuscaloosa, though, were growing more dire as the sky darkened and the wind picked up. Then, just before 5:30 p.m., it began to howl.

"It kept building and building," Mulder says. "I thought, 'Wow, something's happening out there.' It didn't kick in all at once. I had to sit and listen for a moment. 'Is this real, do we need to take cover?'"

He made a split-second decision, dashing into the bedroom where his wife was sleeping. "Hey, Rachael!" he yelled. "We have to get in the bathtub! Get in the tub now!"

Just then the power went dead, and the couple fumbled their way toward the bathroom in the dark. In the tub, Rachael sobbed with fear, folding herself into a ball as her husband wrapped his arms around her. Outside their cocoon, the storm shrieked like "nails on a chalkboard."

At the Lees' house, the wind outside mutated into a roar.

That was enough for Roosevelt Lee. The minister hustled his family toward the back of the house, directing everyone to an old iron bathtub and ordered his wife and the children - 15-year-old daughter Faris, 7-year-old granddaughter Madison and 1-year-old granddaughter Brendanee - inside. Then he flung himself on top of them like a blanket.

No sooner had they formed a sandwich of bodies than the Lees heard the splintering and popping of wood and metal - the sounds of the house being peeling away from around them.

Then a back wall exploded off the foundation and the outside thundered in, lifted the tub with five passengers aboard off the floor - and sucked it out through the gaping opening like a torpedo.

---

At the hotel in Bessemer, the Pattersons leaned toward the televisions as reports came in that Tuscaloosa had been hit hard. But when they were able to reach their daughter by cell and heard she was safe, they figured the worst was over. They joined other hotel guests in the parking lot, staring toward the western horizon at the enormous funnel cloud a few miles to the west.

Debra had seen such storms before, but never anything like this one - it seemed to swallow the whole sky and when that wasn't enough for its appetite, it reached down to paw at the land. Yet for all its fury, on the backside of the funnel, blue sky followed.

But what had the storm done with the Lees?

Inside the bathtub, the family tumbled and spun through air, until they were flung free. Faris, the 15 year old, landed in the driveway. Lee and her grandson were dragged across the ground, rasping their skin like sandpaper. Maggie grabbed hold of a stanchion from the carport, screaming, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!"

When the wind diminished, Lee climbed to his feet and surveyed the landscape. Most of his house had landed across the street. He climbed atop the rubble and saw the baby Brendanee partially buried in a hole of mangled wooden studs. He pulled her out and began running toward help through the rain and wind.

Up Interstate 20, Debra Patterson realized the storm was heading for the fire-damaged home she'd left behind. But an empty house was far from her only worry. A second daughter and her husband lived in the neighborhood, too.

And the storm was moving fast.

In Pleasant Grove, hail continued to drum the Ford house. But the television was still the loudest sound until the angry snap of a tree breaking jolted Jonathan Ford to attention.

He called to his beagle and Labrador retriever, but they refused to join him in the shelter under the staircase (later, much later, he would find them alive). He dashed for cover so fast he dropped his cellphone, before hunkering down in the darkness with his hands wrapped around his head and his eyes closed. A powerful smell - as if a lumberjack had cut up scores of pine trees - filled the air.

Then the house began to rip apart.

Shards of sheet rock razored across Ford's face and wallboard and insulation filled his ears. The staircase collapsed on top of him and the pressure of the storm pushed down, relentless in its power. But trapped in the grotto, Ford says he felt a strangely comforting sensation, as if a hand was stroking his shoulders.

"My granddad died about two years ago in April ... and we were real close," he says. "It just felt like him and God were just rubbing my back, telling me it's going to be OK."

Forty-five seconds later, the funnel roared on in search of its next victim. But the Fords' two-story brick house and all those surrounding it had been obliterated. Trapped under the collapsed staircase, Jonathan Ford dug down through the sheet rock, until he was able to free himself. When at last he stood up and looked southwest, all he could see was a white light, and for a moment he wondered if he might be dead. But he hurt too much for that to be possible. And when he clambered to the top of his truck, and turned to the northeast, he watched as the funnel cloud about a third of a mile wide raked across the landscape.

Then, as it receded and the roar began to fade, Ford stood atop his perch, cupped his hands and hollered with all the power he could muster to whoever might hear: "Is everybody OK? Can anyone else hear me?"

---

And still the storm raged, carving a swath to the north and east, a path of destruction worse than anything this tornado-prone region has ever experienced.

At 6:30 p.m. in northeast Alabama, Sharon Tidmore picked up her smartphone to check the system's progress, but couldn't get a signal.

Her husband heard a high-pitched whining that sounded like tornado sirens. He reached for the door, peering outside to investigate.

Those weren't sirens.

There, directly across the road, a howling black pillar bore down on him. He slammed the door and bolted back in.

"Get in the closet!" he screamed to his family.

There was a horrible cracking as the garage peeled away from the house.

Then the bedroom wall blew out. Two-by-fours snapped like toothpicks.

"It was a terrible sound, like every sound put together," Wells said. "It was like all of hell was coming down on us."

The boys felt themselves being pulled away, sucked into the maelstrom.

"I tried to hold onto my mother and brother, but then it started dragging and I couldn't hold on to anything," Nick said.

The house - now just a stream of bodies and debris - was yanked from its foundation and lifted across the back yard, where it slammed into a stand of trees.

And then, in the next moment, it was over.

The funnel churned into the forest, then "disappeared like it had never been there," Wells said.

He was the first to get up. The storm had dragged him on his back about 150 feet. His mother and stepbrother were about 10 feet away, dazed but unhurt.

Ronald Tidmore was unconscious when the others found him. Stirred from his stupor, "people were talking to me, but I couldn't hear them," he said.

His house was obliterated, but next door, the funnel had plucked a house from its foundation and set it down, perfectly intact, 200 feet away. He turned to look across the road. There a neighbor's home sat untouched.

Back in Tuscaloosa, Daniel Mulder cautiously opened the bathroom door to find the exterior walls of their apartment gone, the roof ripped away. He climbed out the kitchen window and picked his way through debris, before spotting a woman unconscious in the parking lot, her body covered in blood and bruises. He ran back upstairs for his wife, urging the nurse to hurry. "Someone's dying!"

Rachael grabbed a first-aid kit. The woman was breathing and had a pulse. But her torso had been ripped open, like something "out of a horror movie." She needed a trachea tube and suction, a bag to help her breathe. But Rachael could only hold her, helplessly. Moments later, the woman let out a gurgle and then fell silent. The Mulders covered the body with a tarp.

"Why her?" Rachael says. "Why wasn't it me?"

Back in Pleasant Grove, Jonathan Ford watched from atop the cab of his pickup as his neighbors slowly climbed from the rubble in the silent landscape.

Then, from where Curt and Crystal Grier's house had once stood, two doors down, a voice pleaded: "Please help! Please help! We've got babies stuck!"

The Griers and brother-in-law Josh Lowe had escaped from the crawl space under their collapsed porch. But the couple's two children, Curt's sister, Carrie Lowe, and her newborn baby, Tucker, remained trapped. All that was left of the house was the brick front steps. Slowly, the men extracted the screaming children from the rubble. But when Jonathan Ford went to help dig, and he reached for Carrie Lowe, hunched over her son's car seat, her body was cold to the touch. The baby was alive, in the seat.

Later, after the rescue crews had come to take away her body, friends marked the spot with a red rag tied to a splintered piece of wood and placed a Bible found in the wreckage on the steps.

But now, Ford knew, he had to find his mother.

He set out on foot, walking through a surreal landscape of trees trunks stripped naked and snapped in half, cars tossed about like toys. Until an hour or two earlier, one of Pleasant Grove's most distinctive features had been its thick canopy of older hardwoods that provided rich shade, but limited views.

Now, Ford could see across the ridges for half a mile, easy. He quickened his pace, searching the road ahead for something or someone familiar. Police weren't letting cars through. But finally, at the intersection known as the Five-Way, Ford thought he recognized a truck. He saw a woman climb out, and his heart beat faster.

He leapt forward, willing his feet to move faster.

That's when Beverly Ford turned and recognized her son.

"I've never been so proud of my son as when he was running down the street, tears running down his face and his arms wide open," Beverly Ford says.

"Mom, Mom," he said, "everything's gone."

Associated Press reporters Michael Rubinkam and Jay Reeves in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Chris Hawley in Rainsville, Ala., Kate Brumback in Barnesville, Ga., and Holbrook Mohr in Phil Campbell, Ala. contributed to this story.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/30/2194122/in-twisters-path-a-struggle-for.html [with comment]

[StephanieVanbryce]

Haley Barbour To Flood-Stricken Mississippians: You’re On Your Own

In the past week, the Mississippi Delta has been hit hard by flooding in the Mississippi River. The rising water wiped out crops, forced families out of their homes, and caused river-front casinos to shut down, costing the government up to $13 million a month. The Associated Press reported that the damage in Memphis was estimated at $320 million, but that “the worst is yet to come, with the crest expected over the next few days.”

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) –- instead of pledging to do everything possible to help the people of his state deal with the flood -– called for the federal government to declare a flooding disaster, moved his furniture out of his lake house, and told flood-stricken families to rely on their friends to get to higher ground because the state wouldn’t help:

As the water rose, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour moved furniture out of his lake house outside Vicksburg on family land that was inundated during the 1927 flood. A week ago, he urged residents to flee low-lying areas, saying that the state wouldn’t assist the evacuations and that people should help one another secure their property and get out.

With Barbour’s staunch opposition to efforts to reduce climate pollution — which is driving the extreme flooding — it’s probably a good thing for America that he took his hat out of the ring for the presidency late last month.

Embedded Links
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/11/haley-barbour-on-your-own/

[F6]

Ala. family lives amid rubble from April tornado


In a Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012 photo, Geraldine Horton, 53, pauses in tornado-ravaged Graceland Apartments in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Horton's family is living in the lone remaining building at Graceland despite the city moving forward with plans to condemn and demolish the complex, which was mostly destroyed by the tornado that struck on April 27, 2011.
(AP Photo/Jay Reeves)


In a Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012 photo, Geraldine Horton, 53, gestures outside her home at tornado-ravaged Graceland Apartments in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Horton's family is living in the lone remaining building at Graceland despite the city moving forward with plans to condemn and demolish the complex, which was mostly destroyed by the tornado that struck on April 27, 2011.
(AP Photo/Jay Reeves)


In a Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012 photo, the rubble of Graceland Apartments stands in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The city is moving forward to demolish the complex, where a handful of people are living in the sole undamaged building amid the rubble of the killer tornado that hit April 27, 2011.
(AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

Associated Press
Posted: Saturday, January 7, 2012 11:52 am | Updated: 2:11 pm, Sat Jan 7, 2012

Geraldine Horton steps out of her apartment into a broken world that looks much as it did the day after a killer tornado plowed through town last spring.

Buildings are sliced in two across the street from her home and next door; broken bricks litter her parking lot along with shoes, underwear, kitchen canisters and splintered lumber. A smoke detector beeps somewhere deep within the wreckage, its battery dying more than eight months after the twister.

Horton, her husband Leon and their two teenage sons are one of only two families living in Graceland Apartments, both of whom moved in around New Year's. All but one of the 20 or so buildings in the complex were destroyed by a twister on April 27, and the families are living in the sole structure that survived.

"Man, it's still ugly. It really is," Horton said as she scanned the wreckage. "It's got a sense of sadness to it. But it's all right."

The tornado outbreak killed about 250 people in Alabama, including 52 in Tuscaloosa. The twister missed the University of Alabama campus but damaged or destroyed more than 5,000 businesses and homes in the city, displacing hundreds. While many have returned as rebuilding progresses across much of the area, the Hortons' situation shows that life is far from normal in some neighborhoods where the cleanup has lagged.

The family signed a lease in December not realizing the City Council had voted to condemn the property two days before Christmas.

"I know people think I'm crazy for living down here, but it's not where you live, it's how you live," said Horton, 53. "As long as you live the way God wants you to live, or as close as you can to the way God wants you to live, things are going to turn out right."

It's unclear how long the Hortons, who get by on government disability payments, can remain at the complex that shares a name with Elvis Presley's home in Memphis, Tenn. The couple has lived there on and off throughout 33 years of marriage. They were staying elsewhere at the time of the storm but came back after realizing a single building had survived.

But the city is seizing the land through eminent domain. City leaders have talked of using the property for a new elementary school or a fire station, and workers stopped by last week with word that demolition will begin this week.

"I signed a year lease. I don't know what's going to happen," said Horton. Her family lacks cable TV but has everything else she needs _ water, power, sewer service, and a roof over her family's head.

Meredith Lynch, a spokeswoman for the city's incident command, said residents will be allowed to remain temporarily, but it's not clear what will happen as the work progresses. The complex is supposed to be demolished within four months, or by the first anniversary of the tornado, she said.

"We know people are there," said Lynch.

Tuscaloosa businessman Matt Leavell, who identified himself as owner of the property, said there are a lot of rumors going around about what will happen to it.

"I have yet to be contacted as the owner of the property that the area has been condemned," he said in a Facebook message. "To my knowledge we will just continue as normal until we hear differently."

While tornado debris is gone across much of Tuscaloosa and many lots have been swept clean of debris, progress has been slower in the area called Alberta City, where the apartments are located in a part of town populated mainly by retirees, students and low-income residents. There, rubble still lines University Boulevard in some places, and repaired homes stand beside vacant houses awaiting demolition.

Virtually abandoned and littered with storm debris, Graceland is deathly still aside from weeds and tornado debris that waves in a wintry breeze. It's so quiet at night Horton can hear traffic a couple blocks away.

Yet Horton's apartment is comfortable, and the vacant, deteriorating apartment shells nearby are filled with memories of old friends and families.

"When you look at it you can still feel some of the sadness, but it's not as overwhelming as it used to be right after the storm," she said. "After the storm you came in here and were wondering, `What happened to that person, what happened to that person?' You saw them again and felt much better knowing they made it out all right."

Advocates say the tornadoes made it tougher to find affordable housing in the hardest-hit areas of Alabama since thousands of homes were destroyed, and Horton said she and her family felt fortunate find a nice, reasonably priced place in Tuscaloosa. The family needed a new place to live in December, so they returned to the apartments she considers home.

Owners of the surviving building at Graceland Apartments had repaired what little damage there was, Horton said, and her family moved in over the New Year's weekend. The rent is cheap _ about $50 less than previously, she said.

While a pizza buffet, a tobacco shop and a convenience store are operating a few hundred yards away on a main drag through town, the only other people at Graceland are three residents who live beside the Hortons.

Horton and her husband walked through the complex on a sunny afternoon last week, stepping past piles of bricks and concrete blocks topped by moldy mattresses and a fractured wooden crib. She's thinking of writing a book about her experiences but, for now, is just happy to have a home.

Horton has adjusted to living amid the ruins. She has a hard time even imagining Graceland without the rubble.

"It's going to be strange when they clean up all the debris and then you can't see anything," she said.

© 2012 The Associated Press

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