Severe weather in TAG

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Severe weather in TAG

Postby graveleye » Apr 28, 2011 10:58 am

So did everyone ride the storm out ok? I keep seeing familiar places in the news that got pounded yesterday and I just hope everyone made it through.

We dodged the bullet where I live - one of those big cells only just grazed us so I don't have any stories to tell.

Anyone got news or anything interesting to tell about their experiences or someone you know?
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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby Phil Winkler » Apr 28, 2011 11:22 am

Huntsville got hit badly as well as other north Alabama towns.
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2011/04/7_dead_in_madison_county_torna.html

Main lines to Brown's Ferry nuclear plant are down.
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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby Phil Winkler » Apr 28, 2011 11:27 am

WHNT NEWS 19 Team Coverage

10:58 a.m. CDT, April 28, 2011
whnt-storm-damage-reported-in-several-counties-including-lauderdale-blount-and-marshall-20110427
TENNESSEE VALLEY, AL—

The death toll is staggering, and it keeps rising. Currently, more than 60 people are confirmed dead from multiple tornadoes that hit north Alabama on Wednesday in several rounds of severe storms. In the southern states, more than 230 are dead altogether.

Search and rescue efforts continue in many areas, including Madison, DeKalb and Franklin counties. Crews are trying desperately to find people who are alive but may be trapped beneath debris.
Sign up for news & weather email alerts from WHNT NEWS 19!

We've outlined the situation in north Alabama below and will continue to update it.

DeKalb County

Thursday morning, we confirmed with the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office that 30 people have died there. Twenty-eight bodies were found last night, and two more were found Thursday morning.

One of the hardest-hit areas is Rainsville. There is large structural damage to some of the safer buildings, including the Coliseum and Plainview High School.

There are also deaths and significant damage reported in the High Point community.

WHNT NEWS 19 has a crew headed to DeKalb County to get more specific information.
Madison County

Eight people are confirmed dead in Madison County. Six deaths were in the Harvest area. There is still an active search and recovery effort to find more people who are missing.

Sheriff Blake Dorning urges people to stay away from the tornado-damaged areas unless it is a severe medical emergency. If it is not, you will NOT be allowed back in until the search and recovery process is complete, and even then, you will have to show proper identification.

There is a dusk-to-dawn curfew in effect for all of Madison County. This is a life safety issue, said Sheriff Dorning. With no power, there are no traffic lights, no street lights -- it is absolutely dark and you are a safety issue if you choose to drive. If you get in a wreck, you are taxing a serious emergency situation even more.

One of the people who died is a young girl. Several homes were taken off their foundations on Orville Smith Road. She was in one of them. Her father was also critically hurt. Dozens more were injured in that are, as well as on Lockhart Road. Huntsville Hospital is treating approximately 50 people in the emergency room. The majority are critical, according to spokesperson Cheryl Davis.

Throughout Madison County, Huntsville Utilities crews are working to restore the feed from the TVA. Currently, that feed is out, meaning all customers are without power. It could take four to five days to restore.
Jackson County

Coroner John David Jordan confirms there are eight deaths in Jackson County. One is a 12-year-old boy who lived in Bridgeport. He and his mother were leaving their mobile home to get in a car and drive to safety when they were hit. Both were thrown from the car. He died there; she was rushed by ambulance to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, where she is in serious condition.

A woman died in a mobile home on County Road 359 earlier in the day, in Pisgah. Kathy Gray Haney, 45, was crushed by a piano. Her husband, Wayne Haney, was also inside the trailer and was seriously hurt. He was rushed to Highlands Medical Center in Scottsboro.

An elderly couple also died in the same area of Pisgah, but in a different storm. Herbert and Anne Satterfield died when their home on County Road 369 was blown away.

In Higdon, four people died when their home on County Road 95 was blown away. The four people are related; Coroner Jordan said none of the dead in Higdon were children.

There is also a woman missing in the Higdon area. Jackson County Sheriff's Office and the Volunteer Fire Department are searching areas along County Road 95 for her.

Franklin County

WHNT NEWS 19's Shoals Team is in Phil Campbell, where the situation is dire. There is currently one confirmed death, but Phil Campbell Police Chief Merrell Potter says 12 people are missing. A triage center is set up at the Phil Campbell Rescue Squad office on Broad Street. Several people are coming by the truckload, with injuries to be treated.

A number of downtown businesses, along Broad Street, are almost leveled. These include Nix's Furniture and Appliances, Allen's Auto Parts and Fitts Service and Repair Shop.

Phil Campbell High School also has damage. Part of the roof is on the ground, and trees are down on the campus. Some windows are also damaged.
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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby onebat » Apr 28, 2011 1:17 pm

This is really sad. In my area (middle Tennessee) debris has been found from the tornadoes in Alabama.
Just goes to show what kind of power they have.
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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby self-deleted_user » Apr 28, 2011 1:47 pm

Yeah i hope everyone is ok...they kept saying tornado watches up here in MI but nothing hit us, didn't even get a thunderstorm. Today it's very windy and rainy but nothing severe (well, yesterday I was almost knocked over by a gust of wind, the gusts are pretty hefty, we have a tree down it was uprooted but it wasn't a huge tree).
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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby nathanroser » Apr 28, 2011 3:33 pm

We got dumped with rain around Syracuse on Tuesday enough to flood I-81 and a bunch of other roads in town. There was a tornado sighted in a neighboring county and some damage but nothing as crazy as what happened down south.
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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby self-deleted_user » Apr 28, 2011 4:15 pm

I'm glad I didn't move down there yet 0.o

Atlanta peeps, does the worst of stuff usually avoid you? I mean here, stuff goes south through Ohio or north more up in the "thumb" part of michigan. It rarely hits the Metro Detroit area at all. It seems most major cities are usually in such placements, like peeps figured out years ago where to build and not get creamed every Spring.
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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby graveleye » Apr 28, 2011 8:13 pm

no we definitely get bad weather here in Atlanta. It's totally random.
When it gets green out, you head for cover if you can find it.
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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby self-deleted_user » Apr 28, 2011 8:54 pm

Yeah when I lived (as a child, <= 7 yrs old) northwest of Chicago (near Palatine, if that helps) we'd get tornadoes over there a lot more. I remember seeing sky turn green more than once. A tornado ripped through right along our backyard - we had a narrowish deeper yard....maybe 120 ft deep in the back? and it backed up to city property that was a park, with a creek running through it maybe 20 ft past the edge of our property line. The tornado ran along the the creek, basically. Neighbor's house was ruined, got a hugeeeee tree dumped on it (luckily, while they were home, they were okay). Our house was fine, downed large limbs and power lines few bushes ripped up. We did loose a hugeeeee tree - not the one that landed on the neighbor's house though, it was towards the back of our lot and it got dumped on the other side of the creek so I remember my parents being happy they didn't have to pay to have it removed because it was dumped on city property so the city had to take care of it. I was about four years old at the time, my brother (2.5 years younger) slept through the whole thing. I think my father ended up staying at work that night because the roads between Zenith and our house were basically impassable? I just remember him not coming home that night but being told he was okay and talking to him on the phone.

That's my tornado horror story, that was the first time I learned what one was too, so I learned early on to be very scared of them! I've seen the sky turn green a few times since while living in Illinois but only twice since living here in Michigan, and I've been here since 1993? 1994? something like that.

Also, they do sound like a crazy freight train powered by rocket fuel or something at least the ones I've heard. I've not heard one since living here in Michigan though. And most of the time when sirens go off here, we just ignore them unless it actually looks bad outside. Like last fall, I was out running some errands just pulled up to the pet store and it was stormy outside, and the sirens started blaring. No green sky, didn't see any bad looking clouds (wall clouds or anything swirling at all), I shrugged and continued on to my car and drove off.
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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby trogman » Apr 29, 2011 12:31 pm

Yea, if you move to Atlanta or anywhere in TAG that is one thing you will have to get used to. While we have a lot of positives here, that is one negative that can really suck sometimes. Hopefully it will be a loooong time before we have another day like this one, though. We do take this stuff pretty serious- much more than in years gone by. Whenever a tornado warning is posted anywhere in a TV station's market, they all go to full-time weather coverage until the warning is over. James Spann the weatherman is a folk hero here in Alabama. Sometimes when there are tornado warnings, even in other parts of the state, we will watch for a while just to see what's going on. The same storm that ripped through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham came within 10 miles of my house- that was plenty close enough for me!

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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby self-deleted_user » Apr 29, 2011 1:13 pm

Well I guess it's better than a lot of "meh's" and negatives, and not many positives, of Michigan :rofl: Are there any places that tend to get hit more? LIke up here, tornadoes always seem to hit Milford if more south, Holly if more north, but rarely anywhere else. Are there cities like that there that just seem like every time there are tornadoes they get pummeled, and others are more rare?
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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby trogman » Apr 29, 2011 2:03 pm

Sungura wrote:Well I guess it's better than a lot of "meh's" and negatives, and not many positives, of Michigan :rofl: Are there any places that tend to get hit more? LIke up here, tornadoes always seem to hit Milford if more south, Holly if more north, but rarely anywhere else. Are there cities like that there that just seem like every time there are tornadoes they get pummeled, and others are more rare?


As Kevin said, they are generally pretty random. However,there are certain places that seem to get hit more often than others. Harvest, a suburb of Huntsville, got hit by an F4 tornado in 1995, and again this week. Closer to my house, Goshen valley just north of Piedmont, AL got nailed in 94 (Palm Sunday tornado), and that same area got hit again this week. Those are two examples here in AL that I can think of, although I imagine there are a lot more. The folks from GA can probably tell you some of the hot spots in their state. But there is virtually no place where you can feel 100% safe during tornado weather- unless you are underground!

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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby Marduke » Apr 29, 2011 9:02 pm

I've checked on most of my circle of caver friends, and so far no major damage and no injuries. Just everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) doesn't have power, and gas is still in short supply. But that won't stop us from having a cookout and vertical practice tomorrow!!

So, extra old-school points for a cavechat post made by light of kerosene lantern? :cavechat:
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Re: Severe weather in TAG

Postby self-deleted_user » Apr 29, 2011 10:13 pm

I say that is worth extra points! No power...how do you have Internet? Oh wait, cell phone?

Well at least stuff will be all good next weekend for me :P Even if power isn't back who needs it while caving? :rofl:
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