Okay storms, I'm done with you

I feel like I had a lifetime of storms in one day on Wednesday. The day started at around 3 or 4 am with the power going on and off (with the beeping each time) until it finally went off for good. Then the tornado sirens started so I had to get up.  I have ham radios and scanners so I knew there were a lot of trees down and a few roofs had blown off. By this time, the power is still out and no phone service either so I get dressed in the dark and head out to work and to search out some coffee. It was the other side of river before I found some electricity so I could stop and get coffee.

At least around here, once the initial part of the front moves through, you don’t have to worry about tornados. Not this time. While I’m driving to work, the radio says what’s coming will be worse. It seems like I heard that all day long. There were two more tornado warnings once I got to work. Phone service and cell phone service was wonky at best (it still is). By noon, we decided that we would close down for the day. But then it started looking a little better and we almost felt silly going home early. The sun even came out. It turns out the sun coming out was a bad sign. It was this last wave of tornados that did the most damage in our area. Around 4 pm the tornados start again. This time they leveled several towns in our area and some other communities around Huntsville.  I got off easy with just loss of power and phones for a while. Many others did not.  A friend lost her aunt and uncle in the storms.  Some people who drive through those areas to get to work said they got lost coming in because all of the usual landmarks are gone.  People in the Huntsville area and some other areas will be without power for several days.

Check out this graph from the NOAA Storm Prediction Center. The red dots are tornado reports (not confirmed by NOAA).  See the dots that come together in a blob in the very northern part of Alabama. Over towards the western edge of the blob, that’s where I’m at.  By the way, the Storm Prediction Center has lots of cool information.  It’s worth checking out if you live in a storm-prone area.

So we’re all a little stunned here in north Alabama today. The ferrets didn’t mind the storms but Katie spent a lot of time under the bed. Since I’m off work tomorrow, I plan to go out and buy a few supplies to donate. I hear that socks and underwear are in big demand.

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