I woke up to a dark house on the morning of April 27, 2011. A storm had blown through overnight with high winds and knocked the power out. Shortly after I woke up, I got the call that school had been cancelled for the day due to so many power outages around town. We had been hearing the various weathermen talk about how things were lining up for us to have severe weather for days. That had to be the worst of it, I thought as I got dressed for work in the dark. Soon after I got up and got moving around, the power came back on. The weathermen were still warning people to keep a close eye on the weather that day. They were predicting a lot of strong storms and possible tornadoes. I listened half-heartedly. How many times had the predictions for severe weather been wrong before? I kissed the kids goodbye and headed to work.
At work, everyone was talking about the storms overnight. Several people still had no power at home, but the power was on at the office so we started our usual routine just like any other day. We have 2 TVs in the office that we keep on throughout the day. They are usually on a news channel but when the weather gets bad, we flip them over to a local station or The Weather Channel just so we know what's going on. After lunch, we started hearing about storms flaring up here and there so we switched over to a local channel to see what was going on. We stood there and watched in horror as a huge tornado went straight through downtown Cullman. We were glued to the TV. I remember thinking about "those poor people" and how scary it must be to see something like that headed toward you. Not long after that, they sent everyone home. Our office building has glass all the way around it and it would not be a good place to be during a tornado. The schools that had opened that day had also started to close in anticipation of bad weather, and since so many of us at work have school-age children they usually let us go home when that happens. I remember being so relieved to get out of there for the day. Chances are nothing major would happen, but I felt much better knowing I would be at home with my kids if it did get bad.
When I got to the house, I turned the TV on a local station to watch my favorite weatherman. He was already on continuous coverage since there were active tornado warnings in the area. It seemed like there were active tornado warnings all over the state. I have never seen anything like it, and yet it was still calm at my house. It had started to rain but that was it. Nothing major appeared to be happening. A little thunder and lightening here and there, a little wind, but definitely not anything I would consider "severe".
A little after 5 pm, I saw it. A massive tornado that appeared to be heading toward downtown Tuscaloosa. The local news station had a camera on top of the courthouse downtown, just a block from the office building I work in, and it was a perfect position to see an almost mile-wide tornado ripping through town. It looked like it might be heading in the direction of the campus of the University of Alabama but it was hard to tell exactly which way it was moving. All I knew was that any direction it went from that point would be bad. It was heading straight through a very populated part of town. I was so very thankful that I had left work when they told us we could. I sat there in shock with my mouth hanging open knowing that people had to be dying at that moment. I said out loud to no one in particular, "Tuscaloosa is getting torn completely apart right now." There had been some talk of another tornado coming in from the west that was headed toward Northport. That's where my house is. They showed a shot of the sky in the direction of my house and it looked creepy. I walked to the door and saw the same sky from my front porch. I had just witnessed Tuscaloosa getting decimated and a little bit of panic set in. Hunter had gotten two UA football helmets for Christmas so I told both kids to put on a helmet and get under their bean bags in the hallway. Both did exactly as I told them to do, but Hunter hesitated for a second. He looked at me and said, "What about you, Mom?" He looked so scared, so I smiled and said, in the calmest voice I could muster, "Don't worry about me. I'll be just fine." The monster tornado had taken over the weather coverage on TV and no one was talking about the possible second tornado now. I frantically flipped channels trying to find out if we were in danger. Everything was calm and quiet outside now. That freaked me out even more. I have always heard that it gets calm before a tornado hits. After what seemed like an eternity, I told the kids it was okay to take the helmets off but if I told them to get them back on, they needed to do it without question. I was uneasy for a long time after that.
Around that time, the damage reports started coming in. News reporters were using words like "total devastation" and I knew it had to be bad. The tornado had cut a path from my old college apartment complex off of 35th Street, through Rosedale, across Hackberry Lane, through the Forest Lake community (where my second apartment in college was located), across 15th Street and McFarland Boulevard, through Alberta and Crescent Ridge, and along the Black Warrior River. The windows of DCH hospital had been blown out and entire neighborhoods had been levelled. The campus of the University had been spared thankfully. Northport had been spared as well. As the news began to spread, I started receiving messages from all over the country asking if we were okay. Since my power never went out, I still had internet access even though my cell phone reception was spotty. I sat and listened to the news reports for the rest of the night. By the time the 10:00 news came on, camera crews were on the scene and the pictures literally broke my heart. After that, every message I received made me cry. I don't know if the adrenaline had worn off and the realization of what had happened finally hit me, but I sat there with tears streaming down my face for a long time.
The next few days were surreal. The busiest intersection in the state of Alabama is 15th Street and McFarland Boulevard, and now it was nothing more than a pile of rubble. The stories of those who survived and those who did not began to surface. Chuck E. Cheese took a direct hit and there were 2 birthday parties in progress at that time. The aerial photos showed holes in the ground where basements used to be. Places that I have known for 20 years were completely unrecognizable. All of the familiar landmarks were just gone. A couple of days later, much to my surprise, McFarland Boulevard was opened back up and traffic was allowed in the area. For some reason, I just had to see it for myself. I had seen the pictures and the videos, but I needed to see it firsthand. So I picked up a friend and we started driving. We drove through downtown to Skyland Boulevard. Before we made it to Skyland, we could see the outskirts of Rosedale. We thought what we saw there was horrible, but we were not prepared for what we saw once we made the turn onto McFarland. We were not even close to 15th Street, which was Ground Zero, when Lori asked me what the big, white building in front of us was. I realized immediately that it was DCH which could not have been seen from that distance before. I felt sick knowing what all had to be gone between where we were and there. When we finally made it up to University Mall, I almost cried. It literally looked a bomb had been dropped. I have never seen anything like it and I hope I never do again. 15th Street was still closed off and I could see why. There was nothing but rubble and twisted metal as far as you could see. Coleman Coliseum at UA could clearly be seen now. Before there were too many houses and trees there to see it. Lori and I both drove slowly along with our hands over our mouths whispering "oh my God" over and over. We turned and drove down by the river and turned onto Crescent Ridge Road. There were mangled trees and piles of rubble that used to be houses as far as we could see on both sides of the road. Truck after truck could be seen coming off of the side streets loaded down with whatever people could salvage. I honestly do not know how anyone survived. It was nothing short of a miracle that anyone walked out of there alive. Alberta was still closed off and from what I had heard, it was worse than anything we had seen. I can't imagine anything being worse than that.
The next day I loaded up the kids and drove them down McFarland Boulevard. Some of their friends from school had been in the path of the tornado and I told them they needed to see it for themselves. They needed to understand what happened and what some people had gone through that day. I tried to prepare them and told them it looked horrible. Then I told them next time they felt like complaining about anything - not having a toy they wanted, not getting to go somewhere they wanted, just feeling like life was unfair - they needed to remember this day and be thankful for everything they have. They were very quiet as we drove through and I pointed out where things used to be. I didn't take them through the other parts of town, but I think they saw enough to understand.
In the days and weeks that followed, the outpouring of help and kindness was an amazing thing to witness. People came from all over the country to help with the clean up and to bring much needed supplies. The students at UA were incredible. I would see truckloads of them driving around town and stopping wherever it looked like someone was in need. Those students have a bit of a reputation but as far as I'm concerned, their reputation changed forever that day.
The entire state was affected that day in one way or another. A lot of the country was affected. I think there were 71 tornadoes reported in Alabama that day. The one that changed Tuscaloosa forever stayed on the ground all the way across the state. Other communities were devastated too. Too many lives were lost. Too many were left homeless. Too many were scarred in one way or another.
A year later and parts of town are still unrecognizable. 15th Street is still flat. There is still rubble in Alberta. But things are slowly building back. The McDonald's on 15th Street where I ate many meals in college opened back up earlier this week. Ground was finally broken just yesterday on the site where Krispy Kreme will be built back. Slowly things are being built back - some in the same place as before, some in a different place. But Tuscaloosa will never be the same. That intersection of 15th Street and McFarland will never be the same. I will never be the same. The people that didn't see the aftermath first hand cannot comprehend the destruction that took place that day. Pictures just do not do it justice. I will forever be thankful that my family and friends were spared all over the state. As bad as it was, it could have been so much worse. As Paul "Bear" Bryant once said, "tough times don't last but tough people do". May we never forget what happened to us all on 4-27-11. TTown Never Down.
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