All You Can Do Is Pray - April 27, 2011 Ten Years Later

good evening on this day 10 years ago at this time in this room this old weather warrior was battling an event of a lifetime a generational tornado outbreak april 27 2011 over the next 30 minutes to an hour we're going to look back at that day we'll talk about the science of the day the events of the day the emotion of the day the lives involved the effect on this state i call the event generational because these type of events tend to happen every 40 years an event like april 27 2011 has happened before we had a day like that april 3rd 1974. i was a senior in high school during that event that event greatly impacted me on a personal level one of the reasons i'm doing this today prior to that we had a generational event on march 21st 1932 prior to that a similar event in february of 1884. but looking back on april 27 2011 most people think of the tuscaloosa tornado this is the one that most people recall this video it's amazing this is from john brown who has been with us as a spotter and chaser for years and the late mike wilhelm i miss mike greatly he passed away in december of 2019. he loved weather he worked with us for such a long time but they paired up on this day and they chased that storm and got this amazing footage as it moved to the city of tuscaloosa and i will say this on a personal level this is awfully hard for me to watch i don't spend a lot of time watching this particular video most of you know my back story i moved to the city of tuscaloosa when i started fifth grade in a time in my life when life was fairly hard my father had abandoned me and my mom i was a fatherless child low income me and my mom but there were some wonderful people that loved us encouraged us and helped us and tuscaloosa is a special place and having to watch this was so hard this is an ef4 tornado you're looking at graphic violence this is not hollywood this is not a movie this is real i say this a lot and i'll say it again for this special tonight tornadoes affect real people at a real place in a real time wind velocity here about 185 to 190 miles an hour producing extensive damage people were losing their life as this video was taken the same tornado would later move up into birmingham the western suburbs of birmingham places like concord and pleasant grove but please understand for those that are new here or those that are watching that aren't familiar with this event this was one of 62 tornadoes this is not the only story tuscaloosa yes it was a tragedy over 50 people died in this one spot alone but there were so many places that were affected by these tornadoes that really didn't get a lot of publicity small places like bowley springs sawyerville in webster's chapel it would take me hours and hours and hours and hours to go through every tornado and the impact they had on communities in real lives but during this special tonight we'll do our best to go back and look at the day in terms of the science the history the emotion and the impact and again really understand all that matters it is the impact this is what it looked like this was alabama's 9 11. these tornadoes left horrific scenes like what you're seeing behind me here places like hackleberg they were hit by a violent ef5 tornado that on went on to phil campbell probably the most violent tornado of the day and we saw this over and over and over you've probably seen this map this is a map the national weather service prepared of all 62 tornadoes tornado number one was a tornado in waterloo up in lauderdale county in northwest alabama the last tornado of the day number 62 in the community of enterprise in southern chilton county we had three ef5s we had eight ef4s and so many ef-3s but at this time let's take a look back at the sequence of events of the day our coverage that day in the impact it followed in the days and weeks after april 27th good morning i'm jason simpson live in the abc 33 40 storm alert center it started around 3 45 a.m when a tornado warning was issued for parts of pickens and lamar counties in west alabama my colleague jason simpson was on the air immediately the initiation of a little over five hours of non-stop weather coverage for what turned out to be a vicious morning round of severe thunderstorms and again we have multiple circulation showing up on radar right now so if you are if you're anywhere in tuscaloosa county you need to be in a safe place because not only do we have possible tornadoes but we have damaging straight line winds i just got a report of a 62 knot wind gust at the tuscaloosa airport so we're likely to see the wind pick up see the power go out this was what we call it in the weather business a qlcs event a quasi-linear convective system a long line of storms and it was wicked it produced widespread straight-line wind damage and significant tornadoes in places like cahaba heights coaling and cordova nobody knew at the time that cordova would be hit again later in the day by an even more violent tornado again yeah look at that we're watching uh widespread power outages coming through the birmingham metro right now this is a very very dangerous thunderstorm complex every everybody in the birmingham metro i don't care where you are forget the polygons right now we'll do that later today forget the polygons at this moment everybody in the birmingham metro should be in a safe place right now i know you're trying to get your kids ready for school don't worry about that if the principal gets mad tell them to call me you need to be in a small room lowest floor near the center away from windows until this line of severe storms passes we have a tornadic supercell storm that is sitting at the triple point where walker county winston county cullman county all come together this is passing over after a midday lull a new supercell popped up north of jasper early in the afternoon we went on the air around two o'clock and would stay on the air this time for over 10 hours that storm north of jasper was headed directly for coleman uh this is a storm coming right for downtown coleman so again look at there look that right there there's your funnel okay not sure if it's down right remember just because you don't see the condensation this thing could be down the next thing you look for would be debris now it's so far away from this i don't know if we'll be able to see it uh the debris this far away but clearly this is an urgent message this is uh what i would go ahead and call a tornado emergency for the city of coleman this is a life-threatening emergency in cullman county northeast of downtown coleman for about the next 20 minutes a tornado is on the ground we know it's on the ground we see it please take cover immediately and again you can see the debris what happens the radar beam will bounce all of off of these the shrapnel if you will that's called the debris ball but in this case we don't need a radar we'll just we'll you're looking at it live and again this is coming right through the middle of downtown coleman more than likely it could be crossing u.s 31 right now and again this will be coming out in that general highway 69 corridor up toward joppa and arab we're going to stay with us as long as we can now this is uh perhaps one of the largest tornadoes we caught on our tower cams over the years typically in alabama tornadoes are rain wrapped and typically you can't see them because of darkness hills or terrain but we actually caught this the minute we first looked at the skycam shot and again remember i stress just because you see this thing changing in structure it's still down you're going to see it looking different from time to time and there could be a time where it lifts temporarily but clearly we have debris right down here that is on the ground and again it's going to be very close to the sky cam site so let's pull that thing out just a little bit jason and you can see how just for perspective james that tower on the right hand side of the screen that's the channel 15 that's first baptist church coleman so it is passing to the right over the courthouse right now the cullman county courthouse sits across the street from first baptist church and that is a low-powered tv transmitter in coleman and again uh this thing is coming right through the middle of downtown coleman perhaps that was the easiest storm to work all day for me just one tornado was down at other times we were dealing with multiple strong violent tornadoes at the same time if you know someone in this area call them call them in hamilton hackleberg bear creek one of the most violent tornadoes of the day soon formed in marion county it was headed for hackleberg and phil campbell so this lead storm is in is approaching heckleberg north of hamilton moving northeast that's about to go up into franklin and lawrence counties this will soon be out of our territory but clearly everybody in heckleberg and bear creek be in a safe place now this tornado will stay west of hayleyville but that's about i want to tell you right now it's actually coming in our direction it is coming at us later in the afternoon the community of cordova in walker county was under the gun again and at the same time john olchu and ben greer were on a large wedge tornado in northern greene county we all knew tuscaloosa was in grave danger so we are now calling a tornado emergency for tuscaloosa and northport this might track a little north of the city of tuscaloosa but i sure can't guarantee that it's way way way too close so at this point we are asking that everybody in tuscaloosa and northport based on that live stream to be in a safe place small room lowest floor near the center away from windows this includes the campus of the university of alabama as we are now looking at a large violent wedge tornado that is near the tuscaloosa green county line and again that seems to be making a beeline up toward either the city of tuscaloosa or the city of northport i would say maybe at that spot that tornado could be like the tornado that came through coleman that was very destructive might be over one half mile wide and again that is one of the classic looks this could be one of these tornadoes that is a serious direct threat to uh life and property so we are now calling a tornado emergency for tuscaloosa and northport and at the same time we are calling a tornado emergency for walker county specifically around dora summerton and cordova sipsy and empire look at the debris in that zoom zoom in tighter jason if we can go in tighter look at that goodness gracious this will be a day that will go down in state history and all you can do is pray for those people this is an extremely violent situation notice the power flashes please just past the tuscaloosa county or the tuscaloosa city police the police department is down there it's crossing over the industrial area in south tuscaloosa near all the places where they take the cars when you have an accident if you're down that way down greensboro it's on you now it's moving toward mcfarland if you're between greensboro and mcfarland south of bryant and south of university get to a safe place right now for the rest of the evening we dealt with bullets from hell mulberry river get into blount county this is a tornado very very close to you looks like we have a debris ball associated with that one too this will cross over 231 north of fowler's crossroads probably right around jb pennington high school downtown blountsville blountsville city hall and police station right there off of county road 26 at 747 double bridges road so if you are in that part of blount county highway 26 highway 231 county road 747 as well as u.s 278 now north of blountsville toward the rainbow crossing and over towards sneed a significant tornado may likely be moving up the valley there and that is a debris ball a large violent tornado that has moved out of brookwood coming up toward million-dollar lakes and everybody out here now this is oak grove this more than likely will be passing south of oak grove this time but again out of respect out of the strength of this thing if you are in oak grove or point south down to bessemer hueytown concord pleasant grove rock creek we encourage everybody in that part of the area again this is a storm north of demopolis if you're in greensboro we recommend you be in a safe place in hale county for this storm uh out here towards sawyerville wedgworth sawyerville and greensboro so greensboro being a tornado safe place now so this debris ball is going to be skirting the northern part of downtown birmingham and again that that image is just creepy uh let's take that skycam full um i have it zoomed out all the way you can't even see the entire tornado this is this is huge i mean you know let's if we can now monroe let's take the skycam full for just a moment we'll go back to the double box wow you can see the old banker savings building right by the daniel building and this thing is massive this will not affect i think it's safe to say if you're south of red mountain you're fine for homewood i'm going to give you an all clear home water points south this will not affect you downtown birmingham and points north please please please stay in a safe place don't try and take pictures of this don't even think about it we want you to um uh just stay put we got a tornado warning for sinclair county until 7 15. i know technically blunt is involved in this but really and truly this is a saint claire county problem that thing is wrapped up again it's right on 411 yeah boy this is bad uh goodness all right that's the tornado right there this is asheville asheville high school sits here that's 231 going down to pell city that thing is crossing 231 right now it's come across 431 that's 431 or 411 i'm sorry going down to odinville 231 going down to pell city this thing more than likely is on 231 about six miles south of downtown asheville next in line is going to be raglan which is right here if you are in still even though i think the tornado circulation is south at asheville you're in asheville stay in your safe place there could be debris falling uh in this storm that could be enough to injure somebody there's debris falling in etowah county right now in gadsden and unfortunately based on the atmospherics this is not the kind of night with the tornadoes and the severe storms just die they pop up and they die these are long track violent tornadoes and we've warned about this for days and we were afraid that this would happen and sure enough we've had that this evening up in west blockton you might be getting some debris falling from the sky maybe from areas down to the south of there but again that will be moving steadily northeast we'd advise nobody traveling on alabama highway 5 between brent and west blockton history will judge us for the work done in the abc 3340 studio april 27 2011 but we did the best we could do there is no book there is no manual on how to handle 62 tornadoes in one day many coming at the same time [Music] so this is a tornado emergency this is a very serious situation uh but again uh that is uh uh something that you pray that you never ever ever see uh this thing looks like it might be over one half mile wide maybe up to three quarters of a mile wide this will be a day that will go down in state history and all you can do is pray for those people [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] it's just a nightmare that i know that i cannot wake up from it's uh controlled chaos back here basically it was awful it was most scared i've ever been in my life about the time i got through the bathroom door the back of the house was coming off and it was a wild ride after that hearing people yelling for help and not being able to do anything because you're the person that needs help too we felt the felt the pressurization heard the all the windows blow implode and then the next thing we knew everything was flying around falling in on us within a minute of us going in the door and getting in the room it hit i'm in my living room watching tv and i look out the window and hear crashing and i see the tornado over the corner of the building and and i knew it was coming right at me so took cover did what i could and the lord smiled on me [Laughter] a few moments ago i had an opportunity in air one to observe the damage from about 500 feet and to say the least it is massive i would estimate on a three to four mile stretch of the city at some parts more than a half mile wide we have utter destruction we have neighborhoods that have basically been removed from the map we have businesses that will no longer be able to engage in commerce and we've got thousands upon thousands of citizens who have lost all of their possessions he had to go to the va and identify his body they say he had broke his neck and flew him out the back wonder they found him against the tree i knew i had a lot of debris on top of me and i didn't know if i could could get out but i was sort of crumpled up almost in a in a squatting position and the first and i couldn't move my legs at first but that was just because of the debris and up [Music] so [Music] [Music] and all these emotions started to set in as the death toll kept going up and uh every day that the death toll kept going up a lot of emotions going through my mind all of them anger i was angry at me [Music] i was angry at god i was angry at the system because we failed the people of the state because the death toll was that high i panicked a few times that day on the 27th and even broke down a few times in the van but then again you'd hear a story about somebody that heard the warning and they did the right thing and they thought you know you got 36 people here that would be dead if we didn't do the right thing so then you felt like okay you know we did some good it really hurts to think back and look at that and wonder what we could have done better but with the limitations of our equipment the limitations of radar as it is now we can see tornadoes with radar we see the thunderstorm that produces them so we can't tell what's happening down in that lowest part of the atmosphere it just makes you wonder what can we do better and there are going to be a lot of good things that come out of this but they're going to be a lot of memories that haunt me for a long time let me just say i'd like to personally think jason simpson john olshew and ashley brand my colleagues in april of 2011 i would not want to work with anybody else during an event like that their work that day was exemplary what did we learn what are we to gather from that in the weather enterprise i think the one thing we clearly clearly learned is what we do is not enough we do physical science that's really all i know my first major in college was electrical engineering i finished in meteorology i really don't know anything about human behavior and social science and quite frankly after this event i didn't speak about it for six months typically i'm a bag of hot air i'll talk anywhere but i had nothing to say because i didn't know what to say and i needed to grieve these people died on my watch and i'm just a small part a small cog in this big weather wheel but yet at the same time i took this very personally and some of you know that but after six months and going through all of those emotions i decided let's roll up our sleeves and let's get to work and we went to social scientists these brilliant men and women that understand human behavior we're asking people to do something and we have to take this interdisciplinary approach what we do yes physical science obviously but at the same time we have to blend in social science and we have worked so hard over the last 10 years for that to happen we've learned so many things number one people cannot rely on sirens we know some people lost their life april 27 because of the siren mentality we know that people have to wear helmets so many people die from blunt force trauma wounds to the skull the neck and the head region a cheap bicycle helmet or a batting helmet will mitigate that loss of life all of these things we've learned we've integrated that into what we do today are we perfect absolutely not there is so much more to learn i'm very excited about the next generation of meteorologists they will be better than what we've done but we still got some work to do but the truth is all that really matters it's this the people this is danielle downes lauren brown and will stevens these were three college students and they lost their life april 27 2011 at 31 beverly heights in tuscaloosa just east of dch danielle was about to graduate from the university of alabama lauren was a student at shelton state she was planning to transfer to the university of alabama will played baseball at stillman college and they were all friends and they did the right thing they heard the warning yet they lost their life when a large tree fell onto that house at 31 beverly heights this is miss bessie brewster everybody and i mean everybody in pratt city says that miss bessie had the best smile in the neighborhood a retired nurse she lost her life april 27 2011. this is miss minnie acklin from tuscaloosa she died 10 years ago today haley and mikey kreider brother and sister students at concord elementary school i've been to that school so many times i've probably owned some bricks in the building the old building and the new one as well but they lost their life april 27 2011. this is al and angie sanders from shoal creek valley in saint clair county south of asheville between asheville and raglan i know saint clair county pretty well my mom is from asheville alan angie passed away they lost their life april 27 2011. they were home with their daughters the daughters survived the parents al and angie they were taken why did it work out that way we'll find out at another place at another time this is jonathan and justin doss two brothers from cordova alabama small town in walker county you know what they survived the morning tornado that hit cordova but they did not survive that large violent afternoon tornado that came through it could be this is the saddest story of all this is the hallmark family they live in a small town in marshall county called ruth the child you see there that's ari hallmark her parents are shane and jennifer hallmark they were together with the series of family members as the tornado was approaching the same tornado that hit coleman was approaching their place this is what the place looked like the sad truth is shayna jennifer died shane's parents philip and and hallmark died ari's grandparents and a cousin jaden hallmark died five caskets one family unspeakable tragedy i'm proud to say that ari is doing just fine this is ari hallmark i had a chance to have a long conversation with her by phone recently and she's an amazing young woman she's 16 years old today she was six years old when those five family members were killed and she wants everybody to know that she's doing just fine this is angel stillwell angel was a student at pleasant valley school and you know me i'm in a school during normal times every single day many days two schools in a day right now we're doing the programs virtually with zoom and google meet but pleasant valley i've been out there so many times i can't count how many times i've been there she was a sixth grader she was killed in knighton's crossroads in her home on april 27 2011. in fact if you go to the school today you'll see a memorial to angel this is carrie lowe she was killed april 27 2011 she was a nurse she left behind her husband josh and a newborn son tucker this is where carrie lost her life 12th street in pleasant grove there were actually six family members with her and they survived somehow but kerry was taken on that day why carrie why not the other family members again we don't know we'll find out at another place at another time the same tornado that hit hackleberg hit phil campbell this is ricky knox ricky's a 10 year old he lost his life april 27 2011. he was in his grandmother's arms when the tornado hit in southern franklin county this is ashley harrison ashley harrison was about to graduate the university of alabama she's an only child so am i the university of alabama delayed graduation that year later in the fall when graduation was held this is darlene and dave harrison this is ashley's parents and you can see the pain in her eyes if you can't see the pain in that mom's eyes then you're not human it's visceral you can feel it so this is just a reminder that we need to honor those that lost their lives the pain is very real people are still hurting and understand we've all got some work to do here we we have to do better we cannot have another day like this with this type of loss of life and this type of human suffering but the one thing i'll say before we close here it was so refreshing and you've heard me say this before to see how the people of alabama responded in the days after april 27 2011. one of the therapeutic events for me our son young son played baseball at the time we took the weekend off and we just decided to go help somebody and we decided to go to walker county and cordova and we wound up in a place called barton's chapel and it was amazing to me to see how the churches in walker county they had it organized it was a well-oiled machine and they were helping people fema and all these government folks they didn't have the resources to come in and take care of this kind of humanitarian crisis but yet the people stepped in people helping people after april 27 2011 there were no democrats republicans left wing right wing no wing just people helping one another and maybe one day we can capture that spirit again but i promise with all my heart and soul we're going to work hard to make the warning process better i think that's one of the reasons i'm here and we're working every day to do that but i never never want this day to go away i want it to stay in your memory and i want the people who lost their life to stay in our memory let me just say this as we close i want you to look at these names and think about them think about the the survivors that are suffering and grieving today say a prayer for them and for those that lost their life in this tornado i promise we will never ever ever forget you amazing grace how sweet [Music] like me i once was lost but now i am found was blind but now i see [Laughter] it was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears [Music] [Laughter] just didn't that grace appear the hour i first believed [Music] toils and snares i have already calm tears grace hath brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home [Music] when we've been there [Music] thousand ears bright shining as the sun to see god's praise then when we first begun you

Channel: ABC 33/40 Weather

Views: 73,749

Keywords: James, Spann, ABC, 3340, 33/40, Alabama, weather, ANCWX

Id: GUBRlG-C_LQ

Length: 35min 36sec (2136 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021