Tornados Hammer North Alabama

194 just in Alabama ? ...................terrible, looks to be on the east coast ready to keeping heading east............go away and never return

 

Jeff; don't the homes there have storm cellars?

 

Yeah we got whacked real hard. The way this storm was different from past storms is that it came through in waves. We live in north Georgia just south of Chattanooga, TN which is located near where Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee all come together. Early in the morning the first line of storms and tornados came through, Trenton, Ga just west of us and southwest of Chattanooga got hit first around 8am in the morning. It then travelled NE and hit Tiftonia (a Chattanooga suburb) jumped the foot of lookout Mountain and came back down in Red Bank and continued onto Hixson, NE of downtown Chattanooga (both suburbs). Tiftonia got hit so hard that police and State Troopers quickly cordoned it off. Casualties were minimal because most people were at work. Another cell from the storm hit another suburb, East Ridge. My parents live there, their house was damaged but houses one street over were gone except for the foundations. Fortunately, my dad was at his bar and my brother had gotten my mother to pick up his two sons from school because they were closing early due to the weather. So they weren't home. It totally cleared up and the sun came out and it heated up quickly to the mid-80's, the weathermen were saying another wave was coming and the heating of the air was bad. Well, when the next batch came through around 2pm it pretty much followed the track of the first storm and redamaged the areas already hit, the storms were just stronger. When the next batch hit we lost phone service because a tornado went up the road a half mile from the house snapping utility poles and uprooting and snapping trees. The next line of storms came through at around 6pm and were even worse because of the heating, that's when an F3 hit Trenton and tracked more easterly and whacked a subdivision about a mile from my house in Flintstone, GA. Reports are it destroyed 60 homes in one subdivision. I was cooking dinner and the meteorologists on TV said the storms would be hitting our area again in 3 minutes and my wife said, come on, we're taking the dogs and going into the basement. Normally, I wouldn't have but because of all the earlier hits I did. I think this is what saved many lives, people that normally would have blown off the warnings heeded them because of the earlier damage. The next line came through at 8:30 or so and destroyed Ringgold, Ga and continued north and wrecked Appison, Tn (another Chattanooga suburb). That's one thing that is deceptive, all these communities are contiguous but have seperate names and many are located in different states. Anyway the Chattanooga area has 41 confirmed dead, 200 in the hospital with critical/serious injury and scores missing.

 

Those photos are awesome and horrendous at the same time. I do know of someone in Tuscaloosa, and luckily she is okay, but so many others are not. This is just horrible.

I am happy you and your family are okay, USMCPrice, and everyone else on this site, at least as far as I know.

 

Such devastation and loss. Glad to know that both Jeff and USMC Price are safe. I appreciate you sharing the descriptions of what is happening in your areas as it helps us understand what it is like during and in the aftermath of this type of storm. My thoughts and prayers are with all in the area and I hope the weather settles down.

 

Jeff, Price and any in the path of these storms, STAY SAFE.

I heard that the total toll is now almost 300. :mourn:

Ive got some good friends in GA, ALA, and around the area and cant seem to get through to any of them :-(

My heart goes out to you all. And sorry I couldnt access earlier, time Warner cable keeps popping on and off today.

 

Heard the 300 figure, but it has yet to be confirmed as it included the missing. Let's hope some survivors report to the authorities.

 

I'm not sure which one she was talking about Lou, last I heard the storm system had spawned 164 seperate tornados. I'd say it was probably the early one that got Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, I've heard it was a half mile across. I know at one point before the power went out the local news was tracking at least five or six, around town, at one time.

Carl wrote:

It is really hard to communicate Carl, the tornados snapped a lot of utility poles that carry landline telephone service. That was the first thing we lost. The later storms got a lot of the cell phone towers which makes cell phone service sketchy. Try them again this evening and you might get them, they are restoring services quickly. My son that just got back from Afghanistan went back to California last sunday after his post deployment leave. I talked to him last night and he said he'd been pretty upset when he saw the reports on the news because he tried to call, repeatedly, and check on everyone but he couldn't reach anyone, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, brother. He said he felt really helpless.

 

Hi Price, will do and also glad that your through this well enough. I also heard that this is the worst tornado outbreak since about 1974. I remember that time too well and remember seeing a lot about those twisters and the destruction on the nightly news for some time.

 

I tried a friends number in Ga as well as one in Ala, nothing--yet.

 

Some of those tornados were F-5's, a good number were F-4's, and hardly any were smaller than F-3's. The only way to survive a good number of those were to be underground. When new homes are built, I hope they have underground shelters, communal underground shelters (imagine a homeowner association doing a good thing, for once), or a safe room in the house with reinforced concrete walls.

 

Early on in my life I with others went on a cross country camping trip to find myself in the natural disasters up North in Pennsylvania when the great floods happened there. Bridges were wiped out so travel came to a stop. Tents were full of water and I think the moss growth extended from my sleeping bag onto my back as I had no choice but to lay in such wet bedding each night. Nothing could dry out. But I was lucky...during the day we watched the houses and property of all kinds floated down the rivers. I am sure I was just so much luckier than many in the South such as Alabama where the natural disasters have taken such a large recent toll. Nature is deadly and I wonder how many were watching royal weddings rather than realize how a portion of our people were suffering badly.

 

The trouble with homeowners ASSns is, that those who run them are as bad as Nazis. I know, I had to deal with them when living in Houston. They didnt like the color of one of my Curtains as I guess it was too faded with age???? and i basically told them to go (f____ ________) and they threatened things and I said, stay the f--off MY property. As now is within the law, I DO have more rights these days at keeping unwanted scum off MY land.