The morning started at 6am with an extremely fast moving line of straight-line winds which reached 100 mph. This caused massive damage across much of the state, including locally. Many roads and interstates were closed, and lots of power outages and trees and power lines down. 4 people in the area were killed from the morning event.
We were warned that the morning event was just the beginning and to expect worse in the afternoon and evening. Sally was visiting and was supposed to fly back home this afternoon but after hearing the warnings she was able to get out on an earlier flight. Schools and daycares closed, so I was home with Henry and mom came over to help. At 2:30pm supercell thunderstorms started popping up in the state from west to east and spinning off huge tornadoes. First Cullman (about 45 minutes north) took a direct hit. Katie left work early and got home safely, then Tuscaloosa (45 minutes west) received a direct hit from a massive tornado. The Tuscaloosa tornado then headed to Birmingham and passed just north of downtown, about 6 miles north of us. It was a mile wide and caused a lot of loss of life in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, but they still have no idea how many people. All told I think about
We hunkered down in our crawl space when they got near us. Henry had a great time hanging out under the house and was oblivious to the danger. We got lucky today - no loss of power, no trees down, no property damage, and no tornado. Hoping that it's no worse than property damage for our friends and coworkers, several towns where they live received direct hits. This is the third major severe weather event here in two weeks. Today was by far the worst, one weatherman said it was the worst day in 32 years of covering Alabama weather. Scary day.
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