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These pics only scratch the surface of the destruction which occurred yesterday across North Alabama. My area was lucky--we only experienced heavy rainfall, severe thunderstorms and 60-mph winds. Oh, and a 24-hour power outage.
My son who lives 40 miles away in Athens, Alabama endured an F3 twister that destroyed many homes and killed 4 people. Fortunately, he and his family and their home were not in the twister's path, and were unharmed.
Other areas were not as lucky. Totally 195 were killed, 1,000s were seriously injured, and several towns were literally wiped off the map. The major culprit was a 1/2 mile wide F4 tornado which traveled an record breaking 300+ miles and caused damage in 3 states before its fury was finally spent. However, within a 12-hour period it was estimated that over 100 tornadoes were spawned in the North Alabama area.
Today it is estimated that half a million people are still without power and in some areas it will not be restored for over a week.
The whole North Alabama area has been declared a disaster area, and a state of emergency has been placed.
Tomorrow President Obama is coming to look at the damage, and is expected to give massive funds to help rebuild the state.
This was an historic tragic event, breaking records in the damage, deaths, and strength of tornadoes which occurred.
I know one thing I hope I do not have to go through this mess again. Even though nobody in my family were hurt, I spent my afternoon worrying myself literally sick until both my sons called and said they were OK. My prayers go out to those who lost loved ones, and their homes. but, as it is said, "a home can be replaced, but loved ones cannot."

Did you take those pics?

My region also had a lot of storms. Just 20 miles away we had a tornado spotted yesterday in Quantico.

lol, of course I did not take those pics, they were from our local TV station's website http://www.whnt.com
They have quite a few photogalleries of pics taken by viewers from where it was hardest hit.

Shit, I watched that on tv yesterday. I have always been amazed by the power of tornadoes, the problem is how they messed up the whole thing . I always get a bit worried when something like that happen over there, cause I have relatives in Ohio but seems everything is ok. Here in Spain we never have that kind of storms, but in the last years it's typical to see let's say a small copy of that in some parts of the coast. That's something never used to happen here. You know, the weather nowadays...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWSGJ-hG4RM

Here is a link to a youtube video of the F5 which hit Birmingham that afternoon.

The worst damage was done by the last wave of storms which occurred about 4pm. It was as if Mother Nature stored up her fury and then released it for her "last dance".
My husband was looking out the utilityroom window and started screaming a wall cloud was coming. That was when the electricity went off. We just had time to put sofa pillows around our head and crouch down on the livingroom floor. The whole house shook for about 15 seconds, and it was over.

btw, a "wall cloud" is a wide wedge of a cloud which reaches ground level and often has a tornado embedded within it.

This wall cloud was the same system which had hit Florence, Alabama only minutes before as an F2 tornado. My oldest son, Jason, was at work at the time and they had to duck for cover. This system actually intensified as it entered the next county and caused the damage and deaths in Athens, and Huntsville, Alabama. My son Vic, who works in Athens, said they had to take cover for over 30 minutes during this tornado.

I'll be posting more youtube videos as I have time.

http://www.casttv.com/video/nbvu9ku/tus ... 2011-video

The above and below link is to a video of the tornado which decimated Tuscaloosa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA7TKSHJ_wM

A general link about the tornadoes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhKjv9GuARQ

there is nothing more terrifying than a pissed off mother nature., Hopefully the USA goverment help this people rebuild their homes, and certainly this is a sad thing for everybody , many natural disasters in this 2011.

adrian9 wrote:there is nothing more terrifying than a pissed off mother nature., Hopefully the USA goverment help this people rebuild their homes, and certainly this is a sad thing for everybody , many natural disasters in this 2011.

President Obama is going to tour the state, and he has already agreed to massive funds to help rebuild the state.
It is literally a mess in many areas, several small towns were totally destroyed. If this event had happened before modern technology it is certain the death toll would have been much, much higher. But, we were warned several days ago about the warm and cold fronts merging togeher which tends to breed tornadoes. So vigilant people were aware of what was going to happen, and were able to prepare more or less.

Well, the death count in Alabama now stands at 204, and is expected to rise as more bodies are found in the debris.
612,000 are still without electricity. At the beginning about a million had lost power but a few areas have been restored. It will take about a week to get everybody back on grid.
President Obama's plane touched down in Tuscaloosa about 30 minutes ago and he was shaking hands with everyone. This is a state where a large number of conservatives live, where a large number have badmouthed Obama, looked down their nose at him, and even wanted to impeach him. Now these same bigwigs are begging for help from him(the government). Of course since Obama is a good man he has decided to put political differences aside and help the people in Alabama who are in desperate need. However, there are millions of Alabamians who like Obama, and support him, who do recognize that politics should not be entered into this terrible tragedy.

446 people are confirmed missing and noone knows what happened to them. Did they just get blown away by the winds or picked up by the tornadoes? Or could some of them be wandering around in shock? Or covered with debris under the rubble?

Weather used Twister! It's super effective!

... Sorry, I couldn't resist xD

A little update.

Power has been restored to 100,000 more people which means now about 500,000 are still left in the dark.

Some of the missing have been found, some were of course deceased, some in hospitals, and some were just lost, or in shock or trying to find their way around in the blackout.

The last couple days the survivors of this tragedy have been busy trying to put back the pieces of their shattered lives. Most are grateful to be alive as this is now considered to be the worst tornado event in recorded USA history.

Hard pictures, I hope the best for you and your country... unfortunately this kind of natural disasters are happening in all the planet.

This is an university close to the campus of my university (One sister 'cause they helped us a lot), they lost the 90% of the installations because the river grew up and lost its way... Right now the students of this university are having classes in other places (Like in my university)

browneyedgirl wrote:A little update.

Power has been restored to 100,000 more people which means now about 500,000 are still left in the dark.

Some of the missing have been found, some were of course deceased, some in hospitals, and some were just lost, or in shock or trying to find their way around in the blackout.

The last couple days the survivors of this tragedy have been busy trying to put back the pieces of their shattered lives. Most are grateful to be alive as this is now considered to be the worst tornado event in recorded USA history.

Power is slowly, but steadily being restored to areas of my city. Over 100,000 homes and hundreds of businesses were without power for several days.

I saw a report that nearly 300 telephone poles were destroyed in the city limits of Chattanooga alone.

When I see the video and live reports on TV of the tornado destruction I realize just how lucky my family and I are. It makes you think, I mean, seriously rethink and reevaluate everything in life.

Something kinda ironic: the news crew was at a destroyed area, and one of the cameras panned down and lying on the ground in the midst of the rubble was a bashed videotape of the movie, "Twister".

As in the movie people have said they saw animals in the air, and cars. A lot of people were actually airborne as they took cover in their bathtubs, and lived to tell about it. Many families were huddled in a closet while the rest of the house was demolished around them. Cellars were fulled of people packed like sardines, but they were also among the lucky ones.

A local weatherman was caught outside at his home as the tornado approached. He yelled for his two small children to get in their storm cellar. They did, and as their father ran to get in the cellar the whole house was swept off its foundation and landed on top of him just a couple of feet from the cellar! He had to be dug out, and luckily only received a couple broken ribs and a sprained wrist. Debris had fell on top of the cellar door so his children had to wait a terrifying couple of hours while the debris were cleared away.

good thing is that with osama´s death and the end of afganistan war and stuff, the boys will be back home shortly to help and the funds destined to war hopefully will be now used to help families and rebuild the cities.
I think is what everybody is praying for.

adrian9 wrote:good thing is that with osama´s death and the end of afganistan war and stuff, the boys will be back home shortly to help and the funds destined to war hopefully will be now used to help families and rebuild the cities.
I think is what everybody is praying for.

Yeah... no.

adrian9 wrote:good thing is that with osama´s death and the end of afganistan war and stuff, the boys will be back home shortly to help and the funds destined to war hopefully will be now used to help families and rebuild the cities.
I think is what everybody is praying for.

I don't think the guys will be home that quickly, I think they are planning to capture the rest of Al-Aqeada.

Oh, here are the names of the people confirmed dead, so far:

http://www.whnt.com/whnt-names-of-those ... 4889.story

browneyedgirl wrote:

adrian9 wrote:good thing is that with osama´s death and the end of afganistan war and stuff, the boys will be back home shortly to help and the funds destined to war hopefully will be now used to help families and rebuild the cities.
I think is what everybody is praying for.

I don't think the guys will be home that quickly, I think they are planning to capture the rest of Al-Aqeada.

Oh, here are the names of the people confirmed dead, so far:

http://www.whnt.com/whnt-names-of-those ... 4889.story

I dont think they are going to dismantle al quaida just for the death of bin landen...that is a job that concerns pakistan or arabian nations.( that we cannot trust, but still..diplomacy you know)
and when I say quickly i mean less than a year.

It has been a week since that historically tragic day. All but about 50,000 have the electricity and water back on, and there are still many people missing. I don't even want to think about what could have happened to those poor people. Slowly things are trying to get to some semblence of normal, because those lives most affected will probably never be totally normal again. Such destruction is hard to fathom unless you have lived through it, or have seen it with your own eyes.