kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)
Today, one year ago, was literally one of the worst, most terrifying days days of my life.

If you haven't been "under the gun" for a tornado, or otherwise affected by a major natural disaster, it's hard to explain what the terror islike. You know it's coming, but you don't know how long it will last or how bad it will be. The feeling of absolute helplessness is the worst.You are totally at the mercy of Mother Nature, and whether or not she decides to fuck up your shit is a stroke of the divine. None of yourpreparations matter. All you can do is take cover and pray to God that he spares your life, let alone all your shit.

 
My memory of that day will forever be Sarah and I cowering under blankets in the downstairs bathroom as tornadic cell after tornadic cell passed us by. I had my laptop in the bathroom while we streamed weather. It was so loud in there, with the wind and rain pounding. And when the power went out, we weren't even sure if it was because we were about to die or what.

It would be a few days of no-power before we would finally decide to bail and spend awhile in Nashville before things leveled out in Huntsville.

You can read more of my thoughts and memories of the 2011 Super Outbreak here. In short, the tornado and the aftermath of it was a life-changing few days. The things I thought were so important before suddenly didn't seem so important.

Anyways, it just seemed like an appropriate day to look back.

What?

Jan. 23rd, 2012 10:20 am
kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)
So after our crazy storms last night, the temperature here is now 65 degrees.

It's almost warm enough to wear shorts, and yet I'm wearing long khakis and a button down long sleeve shirt.
kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)
I took this snapshot from weather.com on April 26th, 2011, intending to post it online. I forgot about it until this morning.


The next day was the largest tornado outbreak in US history.
kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)
I'm looking out my window right now at my neighbors. They have their kitchen lights on. Inside my house we have light - plenty enough light to light the whole room. And yet I still find it difficult to wrap my head around what just happened.

Of course the reminders are still there. I can't leave my house due to the dusk to dawn curfew. I had to throw everything in my refrigerator away today. Wal-Mart was devoid of most cold goods. And I know that, just a few miles north of me, is nearly total devastation. And it's not just here. The entire northern half of Alabama was just hit by the worst series of storms and tornadoes since 1925. It has even bigger than the 1974 Super Outbreak.

I know all this. But in a way, it still hasn't sunk in that I just lived through a major natural disaster; one that is being classified at the same level as September 11th and Hurricane Katrina.

There were three "lines" of storms that moved through the Huntsville area. The first moved through in the early morning hours. We were woken by our weather radio going off; I switched on the weather channel, determined that the tornadoes were no threat, and tried to go back to sleep. I hate to say that, after this many years in Huntsville, I've become "used to" the tornado threat, but it's kind of the truth. Whenever I hear the sirens, I turn on Dan Satterfield, determine whether or not I need to worry, and otherwise go about my business.

That's what I proceeded to do for much of April 27th. I went to work just like normal, but kept an eye on the weather situation. About 11am, the next line moved through. We weathered it at work, but not without some very close calls, including a wall cloud I photographed going right over our office, and another rotating cloud that went right near the office as well. My wife's job let her go early, but I stuck it out at the office since the next round wasn't due for a few hours.

I ended up bailing early and heading home about 4pm, just in time for the third and worst line to set in.

If you haven't been "under the gun" for a tornado, or otherwise affected by a major natural disaster, it's hard to explain what the terror is like. You know it's coming, but you don't know how long it will last or how bad it will be. The feeling of absolute helplessness is the worst. You are totally at the mercy of Mother Nature, and whether or not she decides to fuck up your shit is a stroke of the divine. None of your preparations matter. All you can do is take cover and pray to God that he spares your life, let alone all your shit.

At one point, Madison County was under 5 different tornado warnings at the same time.

The weather radio was just blaring non-stop.

We were in the half bath. Me, my wife, and our cat were under the blankets. The laptop was streaming weather and we were praying the next cell would just pass us by.

And then the power went out. We now know this was caused by an EF-5 tornado severing all the main lines between Huntsville and the Brown's Ferry Nuclear Plant, but at the time we had no idea if this was caused by the power lines being cut at the end of the street. And at that point it got really loud and I was fairly certain this was it. This was the end. We were going to die. In a bathroom.

And then ... it stopped. It moved away. We had been spared.

Cells would come and go for the next couple of hours. We were in the bathroom a few more times. Eventually UPS power keeping the cable modem ran out and we had to turn to a small black battery-powered shortwave radio that I had stashed upstairs in the office. This little thing would be our lifeline for the next 48 hours.

But finally, I heard the most beautiful words I can remember hearing in years: "Madison County, you're in the clear." I fished out a battery powered lantern from our camping supplies and we spent the rest of the night listening to the radio. People were calling in with information about how bad it was in various parts of the listening area. It quickly became clear that northern Madison up into the county had taken a pretty hard hit.

The next morning, we awoke. Sun was streaming in the windows. It was absolutely gorgeous outside. And cool. I had to put pants and a sweatshirt on to go out and inspect the house for damage. Fortunately, there was none. All around us the sun was shining. But there was no power.

I kept the radio on the call-in shows. People were already starting to act stupid. Rumors of gas shortages and places that "might" have power were sending people scattering. Sarah and I stood in line for some supplies at a drug store for about an hour and a half. They were hand-ringing people out by writing down what they were buying. That night we cooked hot dogs on the grill to avoid at least some of our food going bad.

In the middle of all this, I felt a little divine tap on my shoulder. I looked up. Imagine the most beautiful starry night you've ever seen. Then multiply it by 10. The stars were fucking unbelievably gorgeous considering there was no other light anywhere in the entire county. We played "monopoly" by lantern light mostly because Sarah wanted to. I figured it was her way of coping; I would rather have just listened to the news.

I'd been trying to preserve my cellphone battery as long as possible by keeping it in Airplane Mode. Cellphone service quickly deteriorated to virtually nothing. I figured that I could manage to sneak a few text messages out and get a couple in, but not much. I did get a text message from a coworker saying he was coming up to pull some servers out of our rack and take them to Birmingham. I told him I'd meet him at the office. Needed to get out of the house.

So I went up to the office and helped them pull servers. While there, one of my coworkers mentioned that the company had a block of hotel rooms in Nashville and was paying for employees who wanted to go out of town to go to Nashville.

So Sarah and I had a long discussion about whether to go or wait it out. The key of the discussion was the cat. We eventually decided that, since the weather was nice and the only real problem was that there was no power, that we would leave her in the house rather than uproot her and traumatize her with a two-hour car ride and a few days in a hotel room. The house was secure, and she had plenty of food and water and is used to us occasionally leaving town for the weekend.

So that afternoon we left for Nashville. On our way up we drove through at least one damage path. We saw trees stripped of bark, farm fields full of debris, and huge billboards not just destroyed, but literally pulled up out of the ground, concrete and all, and tossed around. After we reached Nashville, we checked in and got settled. My company took all of us affected to dinner at a 5-star restaurant in Nashville. I drank a 14-year-old Port at $20 a glass.

On Saturday we toured the Lane Auto Museum, where you can find the the largest collection of European vehicles in the United States. Yes, in Nashville of all places. We also toured the Tennessee State Museum; both of these were great at getting our minds off of what happened. But the whole time I'm checking Twitter constantly, trying to figure out when we can go home. The estimates to turn power back on ranging from a couple days to a week plus.

Sunday afternoon, we finally got word. Thanks to the hard work of TVA and Huntsville Utilities, power was staring to slowly return to Huntsville. First to essential areas such as hospitals and water treatment plants, then to major public businesses such as grocers and gas stations. But by Sunday evening, residential power was beginning to come back. Sarah even got a call from her work letting her know they were going to be opening Monday. So we decided to head back Monday morning.

We got up and headed home. Stopped for breakfast at a McDonald's outside Nashville where everything was written in Spanish first, then English. Then, eventually, got home. And the power was on!

As I mowed the lawn this afternoon, I noticed to beige in one of my bushes. I looked close. It was insulation. That was part of someone's house at one time...

I've tried to give an accounting of what just happened. My thoughts are still so scattered. The only thing I know is that I'm thankful to God that I'm still alive. I'm looking at everything differently now. The little shit doesn't matter. I'M FUCKING ALIVE!

Guys, you've heard my story. I was unbelievably, amazingly fortunate. But there are a lot of people here that have lost everything. Don't be fooled by the TV; Tuscaloosa's getting all the coverage, but there is equivalent damage over enormous areas of the state. There are a half-dozen towns that are not just damaged, but have been completely wiped off the map. Even here in Huntsville, only about half of the town has power right now and we're still under a dusk-dawn curfew. It's going to be awhile before things are back to normal.

So while I sit here in my house thankful to be alive, there are people out there who have lost everything. Please, if you can donate time or money, please do. This time, the disaster struck us.

Alive

Apr. 29th, 2011 05:41 pm
kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)
We're alive and unharmed. We are in Nashville.

Our house took no damage, but Madison is without power, and will be without power for anywhere from three to 10 days. There is no cell Internet in Madison either or I would have checked in sooner.

My company is putting all the affected employees up in hotels for the duration - at least until utilities are restored in Huntsville.

I'll have more to say later. In short, this has been a life-changing couple of days.
kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)
kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)
kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)

After spending three days trapped in the house, we were finally able to escape the Snowpocalypse last night. Only after I rigged up a makeshift "snow shovel" out of two pieces of wood and used it to clear the driveway. The neighborhood is still a mess with ice and slick spots all over the place, but once you get out on the main roadways, it's fine.

We celebrated our daring escape from confinement with Thai food. And, for those who are curious, Snowpocalypse 2011 was Huntsville's biggest snowfall since 1988, and third biggest ever. And the worst part is that, during the day, it gets just warm enough to melt a little bit of it ... which refreezes over night and turns all the roads into giant sheets of ice. So yeah. Snow is just not something we're built to deal with around here.

Man, shoveling that snow sucked. I can't imagine what I'd do if I had to shovel snow on a regular basis. Still, it beats cowering in a dark room while tornadoes threaten to rape you. It'll be that time of year in just a couple of months!
kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)
We received 9" of this crazy white stuff over night. WTF is this? :P

kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Tornado

Oct. 26th, 2010 08:35 pm
kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)
I will tell you that, in the more than 5 years since I've moved to Huntsville, I've never been as scared as I was today. Hell, I don't think I've been as scared as I was today since I rode out Hurricane Ivan in Auburn.
The clouds started forming 5:00 PM
The funnel clouds touched down five miles north of Russellville
Siren's were blowing, clouds spat rain
and as the thing came through, well I swear, It sounded like a train
I really wasn't expecting such a severe weather day. All I saw this morning were really high crosswinds from the local airports. Around noon, it really started to cloud up and by 2PM, we were in the type of severe weather I haven't seen since the Madison tornado last year.

The first tornadic cell went north of Madison, with a confirmed touchdown in the Highway 72 and Jeff Road area (near the new Super Kroger they're building up there). That one went north over northern Huntsville. But later in the day, another cell formed south of Decatur. This strong, tornadic cell tracked over the river and over the airport, following right along the south side I-565.

The office, where I was, is located on the south side of I-565 in Madison.

We took shelter downstairs, but there's no place in the office that doesn't have windows, so we were in the lobby. As we watched out the window, the rain went from light, to heavy, to driving. Then the trees stared to bend varying ways, losing what little leaves they still had left, and ground debris began to blow around in the air.

All at once, everything got really fucking loud and clouded. We couldn't even see across the parking lot. In about 30 seconds, the rain went from blowing north, to blowing west (or maybe it was east) to blowing extremely loudly against the windows. And that was it. It got quiet. Eerily quiet.

In other words, the fucking tornado went right over my fucking office building.

Now obviously, this was not a major tornado and we were also in a brick reinforced building. But it still scared the living hell out of me in a way very few things have. Had the storm tracked about 2 miles north, the tornado would have hit my house. I'm pretty sure a home such as mine (wood construction) would probably have sustained some damage.

On the way home, there were trees down in various places and the roads were covered in debris.
kiranlightpaw: kiran_likeshine (Default)
The daytime highs have been at or near 100° for the last few days. I'm not insane - I'm not about to go out in that in the blazing hot sun just to cut the lawn. So I waited until 8:30 tonight - after dark, when it was just 95° - to cut the lawn.

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