4.27.11

So it's been a month since our beloved little (93,000) college town was ravaged by a devastating F-4 tornado.  I feel like I'm just beginning to catch my breath.  Like I have said in countless posts before, this is a long term recovery effort so I know I might not truly catch a full breath for a long time to come and that's okay.   I'm still not used to driving up on the devastation.  I still think weekly, "I need to run to Hobby Lobby to get so and so"...and then remember that there is no more Hobby Lobby.  I've become invested emotionally, physically, and mentally with a sweet single mom and her baby and it's like I have 2 more family members to care for.   I know God has called me to it and I am so privileged to have been welcomed into her life no questions asked.  She even listed me as family on her daycare form that she filled out yesterday.  I look forward to all the Lord does in and through this unlikely friendship.

Today, I wanted to try and write out the way we experienced April 27.  I haven't really done that yet, and I don't want to forget the details of that day so here goes...

At 5:05 am we were awakened by an intense thunderstorm with a lightning show like we had never seen.  The sky was literally one strike after another with barely a second between each strike.  We looked out the window and surprisingly the winds didn't seem too terribly strong.  Jeff went downstairs to see what James Span (who would prove to be the all star of the day) was forecasting.  You see, for days before April 27 weatherman all across Alabama were talking about the potential of bad weather.  We were prepared but at the same time a little leery because for the past two weeks we had tornado warning after tornado warning with no big storm actually occurring.  April in Alabama can be a rough time.  Anyway, even though the thunder and lightning were bad...it didn't seem like it was a bad storm so we went back to bed until our kids woke up at their usual bright and early time of 6:30 am.

School had been called off the night before.  This was such a smart thing for the city and county to do and I am so thankful for the wise foresight our school officials had.

After we got up, I checked my email on my phone and saw that Jeff's mom had emailed about his sister's house (in Birmingham) getting hit around 6:00 am with a small tornado.  It was the same line that had come through Tuscaloosa an hour earlier.  Thankfully they were okay, but their house was badly damaged from and will have to be rebuilt. 

So after the storms that morning, the day continued to warm up and conditions ripened for what the weatherman were saying could be a really bad day across Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.  It was just an ominous feeling around town.  Since the forecast was so bad, many businesses even decided to close early as well.  I had been homebound for about a week because of potty training Abigail and really wanted to run to Old Navy to use a coupon I had since I was leaving for a little beach weekend on Friday.  Jeff canceled most of his appointments for the day and warned the students he knew to watch the weather (college students are notorious for not caring or noticing weather warnings).  He got home around lunch time and I ran quickly down McFarland and through 15th Street to Midtown Village where Old Navy is.  It was eery.  There were not many people in the area and you could just feel the tension of the weather.   The sun was shining but the air was thick and it was still...too still. 

I got back home around 1:30pm maybe and there were already super cells all over the state and in Mississippi.  We didn't turn the tv off again the rest of the day.  Sometime around 2 ish, James Spann cut over to Cullman, Alabama and caught a big tornado on their tower cam.  We just sat riveted at the sight of a live tornado tearing through a town.  Little did we know...it would get worse.  Much worse.

After watching that tornado, we realized just how serious conditions were.  I gathered up helmets for the kids and cleared out our coat closet that is under our stairs.  I got my external hard drive, my file box of important papers, my purse, and my camera and put them into the closet as well.

I think it was around 4 or 4:30 when the skies began to get darker.  James Spann had been covering tornadoes and super cells that were all over Mississippi and we were ready as some of them began to enter the western parts of Alabama.

The warnings began to go off and we have a siren right outside our house thank goodness.  We got into our closet and closed the door.  Our dish satellite went out but James Spann has live stream on the internet so we watched it all unfold online (thank you AT&T dsl) in our closet.  This is what we watched with much trembling...




Fast forward to about 2 minutes and you will see the tornado begin to form.  I've never been more scared in my life.  At first, we weren't sure which direction the tornado was going to take.  I'm trying to text my mom and my hands are shaking.  I can barely text.   Tears are welling up in my eyes (they still do even today as I watch this video back because as of now, it's still so fresh and my stomach still drops as I see that funnel cloud). Jeff and I are both shaking.  Samuel is worried too, but the girls have no idea what's going on.  Samuel exclaims..."WE NEED TO PRAY!"  The problem is Jeff and I can't speak...so our sweet precious 8 year old boy cries out to our God for protection during the storm.  I cry just remembering that.  Oh, the faith of a child.

About 8 minutes into the video above (some amazing footage by the way if you haven't already seen it), we realize it's headed to the heart of our city around 15th and McFarland Blvd where I had just driven by a few hours earlier.  While we are thankful it doesn't seem to be heading our way, we know it's tearing up where friends, students, businesses, and so many places we visit almost daily are.

The hours after are a blur and we were in shock.  Cell towers had gone down so we weren't able to get through even with texts.  Every once in awhile we'd get a bar of service and about 5-10 texts would come through from friends and family checking on us.  We thankfully never lost power or internet so we just kept watching and waiting to hear what had happened to Tuscaloosa.  Jeff was frantically trying to get in touch with students and our co-workers who we knew lived right in the path of the storm.  We could hear sirens even at our house a few miles away.  Chaos abounded.  I kept checking facebook to see any updates.  Problem was a lot of people were without power and internet.  Jeff is trying to talk me into letting him leave to go into the madness and check on Justin and Alana.  We were so scared they were injured or worse.  As the reports came in of 15th Street being wiped out, we knew that they had most likely been hit.  I just couldn't let Jeff leave though.  The bad weather was still not over and we didn't know if there would be more tornadoes and plus we knew if it was as bad as they were saying, he wouldn't even be able to get very close to where they were.  He finally got in touch with some students who were going to just walk to their apartment and check on them.  Not long after that, a text finally came in from Alana saying they were fine, but had lost everything.  We were so sad for them.

As I continued to check facebook, I will never forget the first image that was posted.  I immediately bursted into tears realizing just how bad the devastation was.

This was a picture I took on April 29 but the picture I saw was of this general area with Hobby Lobby and Big Lots next to it completely destroyed

It was not a nightmare.  This was real and our city was not going to look the same for quite some time.

Justin and Alana arrived at our house about 10pm tired and shocked at what they had lived through.  We were so thankful to see their faces and happy to welcome them into our home for a few days.  I didn't end up getting to go on that beach trip, but of course that was the last thing on my mind!

The month since that fateful day have been days that I won't soon forget.  I've said it before, but I'm really proud to be from Tuscaloosa, Alabama and am looking forward to seeing our city come back even better than before!!!!