...This marks the one year 'remembrance' of the massive tornado outbreak that ravaged much of the southeast, with Alabama taking the brunt of it... this region just seems to be in the 'right' wrong place in terms of the ingredients for cooking up MAJOR tornadoes... we've had more around here over the years than anywhere...including the Great Plains area, where most folks think of when tornadoes are discussed. This outbreak yielded the most tornadoes EVER recorded in a region for a 24-hour period... approximately 208.
Here's just a few links regarding the insane events of that day...hard to 'relive' this, even tho we personally suffered NO damage at all... but...it still affects ya...
April 27, 2011 Tornado Outbreak
One of many heavy Youtube Videos...
...in that video, those folks get to about a block away from where my old house was (now a vacant lot)... we had moved out about 7 years before, and moved across town. That video was at least a few weeks after the fact...we more or less walked that same route about an hour after it happened, looking for a few folks to see if they were OK - they were - and literally hundreds of trees were everywhere...once you got in the 'ground zero'' area, it was hard to even figure out where you were...and this was again just a few blocks from where I lived for 7 years! It's as close as a civilian can get to being in the middle of a war zone...something I NEVER want to do again.
Still a pretty dang hard thing to watch, and even tho I'd say as of today, 90% of everything is cleared out and/or rebuilt... but there's just stuff here that will ALWAYS be reminders...such as the mangled remnants of trees, many of which, strangely enough, are popping out with leaves - they look like weird, prehistoric deals, just large 30-foot tall 'stumps' with a 'dollop' of green on top... and of course, there are still houses here and there for whatever reason haven't been touched for a year - ready for those to be leveled...but nobody wants to pay to do that.
Well, the good news for here and now is, there's been no threat of bad weather for the last few months now, which has been good - cause LOTS of folks around here are pretty shell shocked, and even the threat of bad weather would freak folks out.
Well, sorry to post another 'downer' topic, but...it was just too big of an event to not 'document'... but seems like the area is recovering, and folks are more aware of how to rebuild, with 'safe rooms', and stronger general construction, so, that's a good thing to come out of all this.
Thanks to all who gave T&P during that time...and please keep the area in mind, as there is STILL quite a bit of things needed to get back to 'normal'...
I promise the next post will be a bit more 'light'...dang, it BETTER be...
VKMfanHuey
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At least there hasn't been any yet. I've never been through a tornado before. I hope I never do. It seems too scary, and from videos they show, I could never deal with that. Hopefully there won't be another big one like that.
ReplyDeleteHurricane season is coming soon. I hope there won't be any coming towards over here. I've been through two, and don't want to anymore! Especially since the last major one here(Ike) destroyed a lot of amazing places in galveston that they can't build anymore. It's a shame.
Have a great weekend! :)
It definitely is a feeling of helplessness... I hate to say it, but a typical house just doesn't have ANYWHERE that's safe from a fair-sized tornado... just places where you have a better chance to survive than others.
ReplyDeleteAs for Hurricanes, we've had a bit of problems with those over the years, if one shoots straight up Mobile Bay, we get a good bit of wind from it...Opal came thru here in the mid 90's (about the time you were born), and knocked down a LOT of trees, no power anywhere... but the wind wasn't enough to damage houses too bad...
Galveston has had their share, dang it... hopefully we won't see any more of those for awhile...like, 100 years or so :-)
Yeah, I'm gonna get a GINGERY post out by weekend's end... maybe the Change of Heart review - it's not gonna be too involved.
KIG, Arianna!
VKMfanHuey