Our Piece of Paradise: May 2011

Chris will be back mid-summer. We gave up our house on-post (because it sucked) and I came back to Alabama and we kept all of our BAH. Which was nice. But, we figured it was about time to start looking for somewhere to live. You know, only in the military can you be making a cross-country move in a few months and not prepare at all for it! Haha ours is not cross-country of course but still.. you get what I am saying! :) Well I was doing some googling and what not.. I came across a cute house that had most everything we were looking for in a place to live. Close to post, check! Big back yard, check! Haha, the list goes on and on. When I called to ask about the house, the date it was available was the exact date that we were hoping to sign a lease. Perfect, huh?? I am so excited to finally have our life back with our whole family. And also excited to get it back in a nice new house! So without further ado.. haha! Here she is...

I woke up Wednesday, April 27th at about 5 in the morning to thunder and incredible wind. You could hear it howling outside. I thought to myself "should I get Kiley up and go to the basement?" But I decided against waking her up because I knew it was right on top of us right then and James Spann (the world's best meteorologist) said that the storm was moving very quickly. Looking back that was a selfish and stupid decision. But James was correct, within about 5 minutes the wind and thunder stopped. So I was glad to have not woken her up. As I was going back to sleep I heard James Spann say that these storms were nothing compared to the storms that would be heading our way that afternoon. I then dozed back off..

Kiley woke me back up at about 9 that morning. And I instantly had an anxious feeling. The regular shows were still on tv but they would give a weather update probably every half hour telling how these storms were moving through Missippi on their way towards Alabama. I have never been one to really fear storms, but I had a bad feeling. I was home alone with Kiley and I am sure that might have been part of it. (My first storm home alone with my child). I called my mother at work and told her that I was feeling nervous and she said that was probably for a reason. So right then I decided that I was not going to ignore this storm. I called a friends family and asked if they wanted to come ride it out with me. They lived in an apartment so they needed a basement and I needed mental support! Fair trade huh?

They began the LIVE non-stop coverage of the weather at 2pm. A little while into it, they went to a live shot of Cullman, Alabama. (Probably about 30 miles north of my home). They had a live video of a tornado on the ground.

It was crazy to watch it actually moving through and not coming off the ground. After a few seconds, you began to see things flying around the bottom of the funnel cloud. (or a debris ball) That is when it hit you that as we were watching this, the tornado was destroying things in its path.

It was still not doing anything at our house yet. Weather was fine. About maybe an hour or so after the first storm is when the next one began to roll in. They went to a live video of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. About 50 miles southwest of my house. You would think we would have been prepared for what we were about to see since we had already seen one tornado in the day. We were wrong..

Tuscaloosa is the home of the University of Alabama and home to some of my family and many of my friends. This is when my stomach dropped. This storm never came off the ground and continued to get bigger and bigger. I was scared. Scared for those there in Tuscaloosa and scared because it was headed our way. This storm was moving fast/and slow at the same time it seemed. I don't remember how long it took for it to make its way into the Birmingham metro area but it wasn't very long. James Spann mentioned that it would be heading through the towns of Pleasant Grove and Concord (both of which I have friends in) and then into Birmingham. We stayed upstairs to watch the tv for a short while longer so that we could see it. Both of these towns are small so there were no sky cams so we had not the the funnel cloud in a while. It made a quick turn and just avoided downtown Birmingham and went about 7-10 miles north. To the Fultondale/Gardendale area. My hometown. This is the last image of the funnel cloud.. In this photo it is probably about 5 miles from my house..

It was absolutely horrifying to see this. That is all an enormous funnel cloud. We immediately ran to the basement. And very shortly lost power. Kiley was panicky, but I couldn't blame her. I tried to calm her down but I'm sure she wasn't buying it. We waited and waited but nothing really every happened and after about 15 minutes in the basement, the sun came back out. It had passed. Relief. We had made it. As is always in the south, everybody began to walk out of their houses. There was all kinds of debris in the yard. I found a lid to a plastic storage bin and my neighbor found a cd still in the case. Everybody was glad it had passed. The neighborhood did however smell of natural gas. But everybody was fine! None of us had power anymore and because of that, we had no idea how bad it really was. At least not until the light of day..

Without power, my "smart phone" died fairly quickly. The next morning, still no power, I drove to a city that I knew had not been affected to buy a car charger for it. I bought it, plugged it in, and immediately began reciveing texts messages. One of my friends younger sister was in Tuscaloosa and rode the storm out in a cellar and her car was destroyed. And another from telling me that another friend of ours had lost his home completely. She invited me to go down and help and I agreed. I took Kiley to stay with my in-laws because they had power so she was taken care of.

He lives in Concord Alabama. I was glad to help but I was not ready for what I would be seeing. (All of the following photos were taken by me)

Concord, Alabama

My friend's parents house.

My friend's house.

The pictures can't even begin to do the situation justice. They and everybody in their community have lost everything. It is absolutely heartbreaking and it is just like this all over our state. Alabama is devastated as am I. I almost feel guilty even saying that because I lost no loved ones and had no damage to my home but it hurts me to see so many people's lives literally torn to shreds. The death toll stands right now at 250 people with over 450 people still missing. Even in all of this, people are coming together and helping their neighbors. Everybody we came in contact with was in good spirits and just thankful to be alive. I pray for my home state and for all of these people who were affected by this horrible tragedy.

I wrote this blog as a total vent session! I have been cleaning and picking through rubble for anything that can be saved. Talking to people, hearing stories of miracles and stories of heartbreak. My body is sore but mostly my heart is heavy. As I tried to lay down to go to bed, the physical and mental exhaustion kicked in and the tears came. So if your reading this, stop and say a prayer or maybe even just a kind thought for the state of Alabama, it could use all the help it can get!