Tornadoes in Alabama

As most of you that read my Blog know, I live in central Alabama. The storms that came through here on Wednesday have greatly affected my family and our close friends. Thankfully nobody in our family or close friends were part of the over 300 people that died from the tornadoes.

We lost power that morning at 6AM. A tornado hit about 7 miles away in my brother and sister’s town. It went through their small town and did a large amount of damage. A few trees fell down on our road with some power lines and we never restored power.

It was a very hot day, which is apparently very bad for the atmosphere and produces tornadoes. After the generator was running later that day, we realized that there was a very large tornado that was moving through our state.

This was the tornado that was on the ground for over 300 miles. It was the same one that was at times a mile wide. Same one that hit Tuscaloosa and eventually was the same one that hit about half a mile away from our house.

We don’t have a basement. When the news people were saying it was coming in our area and if you live where we live to seek cover immediately, we did. The sky by the way was a creepy shade of yellow. The water on the river was moving very fast. The only place we could make it to that was “safe” was the first floor hallway.

We heard the loud noise of the tornado. It was scary. We prayed. Luckily, it didn’t hit us. However, only half a mile away or so saw complete devastation. Many people died, our close friends lost their houses, and as my brother and dad said when they saw it over there, it looked like a war zone.

Yesterday, my Mom and I looked around our yard to see if we saw any debris or anything. We found mail from people in Pleasant Grove and Tuscaloosa, a yearbook page and a piece of a page from a Bible. We live probably 100 miles away from those two towns. Random objects have also been spotted floating down the river.

If you pray, the people that have lost everything really need your prayers and support. My little area that I live in isn’t getting much (if any) coverage on the news, but everyone affected by the deadly tornadoes that hit the South really do need prayers.

I will update when I can. I appreciate the e-mails and FB messages left for me asking if I am okay. We still have no power here and now not even water. I’m writing using the generator right now and using our DSL (somehow that works).

Take a look at the aerial coverage from the tornado damage in central Alabama here: