This is a detailed summary of my afternoon on the day of the tornado. I am thankful to be alive to write this.

 

I left work at 3:15pm and went straight home to see my family. We were already thinking about where to go where we could be safer than at home because we had no power from the early morning t-storms and no basement. We packed some stuff and hurried over to my mom's house in downtown Tuscaloosa.

 

Mom has a basement and had power. But, the basement is not a good place for kids and only dirt and no walls for protection. I remembered Amy had posted that she was having people over to hide in her basement, enjoy munchies and beer, etc.

 

The weatherman was saying that a dangerous system was hitting extreme NW Tuscaloosa County. That would not hit near us. But there was another storm in Green County headed our way, straight for Tuscaloosa proper. We decided to rush over to Amy's.

 

We arrived and we were very impressed with her home and her basement. So the kids got settled into a movie and most of the adults were upstairs watching weather on TV. About 45 minutes after getting there, the adults who were watching tv in the living room came quickly downstairs to the basement. There was a sense of urgency and no one was smiling. I knew they must have heard some frightening news.

 

Everyone sat down, some in chairs, others on the floor. When we all heard the roar of the tornado, everyone who was in a chair got onto the floor. Adults with children in their proximity grabbed the youngsters and helt them tight as the noise became intense.

 

We could hear loud winds and debris and rain hitting the tiny window near the basement ceiling level with the ground. I grabbed Abram and hugged him tight as I scooted my butt up against an interior basement wall. The noises got louder and louder. It sounded like metal banging and wood breaking, all combined with the notorious train sound. Our ears started popping. Dust filled the air throughout the basement. No doors or windows to the basement were open but the dust filled the air anyway. I knew something very bad was happening.

 

We waited...not sure how long. I lost track of time. Then Mike Traylor and another man, their neighbor, went up the basement stairs. I could barely see the men as they topped the staircase and opened the door. Too much light was coming down the stairwell and I had a very bad feeling. They came back down and told us it was bad. We were all very confused and really could not imagine or guess what had happened up there.

 

My memory of the next few moments is mostly a blur. I, myself went up the stairs after sending Abram over to Miriam 's custody. I topped the stairs and opened the door and saw the living room open to daylight--the cloud-filled sky. Their belongings were spread all over the room along with shreds of leaves from trees, sticks, and pieces of their chimney. COMPLETE DISARRAY! 

 

From there, I decided to take a look around up top some more after we determined that the immediate danger had passed by. I walked around where I could on the ground floor of the house. It was so surreal like a dream or a movie. I then went outside and could not believe the devastation I saw. Roofs gone everywhere. Treetops gone. Trees down. Trees "skinned" of branches. Debris, people's stuff, rubble was everywhere.

 

For the next hour or more I went between checking on my family still in the basement to taking two videos to looking through all the debris to checking the weather radio for more tornadoes en route...it was chaos. What do we do? Do we stay? Do we  go? I was confused.

 

Poor Amy and family. They completely lost well over 2/3 over their house...gone.

 

At one point I went to my car which was now parked on top of a downed power pole about 30 yards from where I left it. The Crown Vic was beat up badly--all the windows blown out, major dents, etc. I knew I shouldn't have dropped everything but liability insurance on the car. Oh well. Six grand is nothing when you're able to say you and your family are unharmed through something like this.

 

After deciding to try to get myself and my fam back to my Mom's house, we started hiking. Well, there was no getting out of the neighborhood, at least not in the general direction of where we needed to go. So a very nice man who had cleared an escape path gave us a ride out of the war zone in his 4-wheel drive pick up truck. We had to snake our way from the neighborhood near the Hargrove-Hackberry curve to 10th ave and Hargrove. We drove under several cables of various types as they hit us in the head. It took about 15 minutes but we made it that far. We appreciated that.

 

We got out of the back of the man's truck and started walking north towards the stadium. About mid-way along Bent Tree complex, I hitch-hiked us a ride from a college guy in a Jeep Cherokee. He was going close but decided to take us a little bit out of his way directly to my mom's house. He was a super cool guy and many thanks to that young man.

 

When we arrived at Mom's, Uncle Dave kindly provided us a ride home to a house which we were glad to see intact. Although we still did not have power and my car was a loss... I cannot complain. The kids got to see the reality of a tornado up close and personal. And we are all unharmed. Too many people are unable to say the same, unfortunately.

 

Let the healing begin Tuscaloosa. And thank you again Amy and Mike for letting us use your fortress basement to survive the April 2011 tornado!

 

Here is a video I made moments after the tornado: