Possible EF5 tornado in Alabama

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You would be surprised. I live smack dab in the middle of tornado alley. Storm shelters were rare, though there are many more after we experienced the ef5. There are lots of mobile home parks and flimsy houses, too. Not too many basements because of a layer of rock under the soil that's hard to dig through.
What people do is leave mobile homes when there's a tornado warning. Our latest local tornadoes haven't gone through many mobile homes. Maybe that explains it?

I used to live in Enid, OK and it was an oil town with a base so it had a strong growth spurt at first, so I did not see many moble homes there. Of course I was young when I left Enid, so much of it I may have missed or forgotten.
Most people in the southeast dont know to leave the moble home cause no one told them. I asked on the night of the storm where the local storm shelter was and was told...I dont know...let me call you back. I never got a call back. I guess that means there were none planned.

I never could figure this out...why do tornados prefer trailer parks??

My mom told me it's because mobile home parks are built on floodplanes. I bet in a year you will see a lot of storm shelters in Alabama. The same thing happened here. Hardly any tornado shelters (although it seems incredulous since this is tornado alley) before the f5, nearly everyone has one after.

The flood plain theory makes sence cause they need level ground to put mobile homes on, and level ground keeps a tornado on the ground longer...when a tornado goes up a hill...its momentum will force it back into the clouds. Or at least that is what my dad once told me. I am sure in about 6 months there will be door to door tornado shelter sales folks running around the southeast makin' a killin'

So have you ever been in a tornado??

I have when I was 8 years old at a daycare center...it took the roof partly off and one kid was hit by glass. It then went to tear up the base bx. my mom and dad were sooo glad to see me alive and well soon as the tornado passed. It sounded like a train running over the building.

I met with a lady who is taking supplies to the damaged areas. Seems people are having a hard time finding information on who to go to in order to help. I called a local charity 5 times and could get no answer. After asking around I located someone and gave some stuff to her, but it was hard to find folks who are going that way...it seems the effort is being shadowed by bin ladin's death and media outlets are more concerned with all that than thousands here that are suffering in the South eastern US heat ( which will soon enough reach upper 90's to 100's expecally in Alabama and Georgia) with no A/C, no house, no sun screen to protect them...very little food and water. People are living in tents among the wreckage with absolutely nothing... and all the media cares about is a dead guy not worthy of all this attention. The media outlets, expecally southern ones, need to be focused on connecting those who want to help with those who need help cause it is very disorganized. I know I could just donate to red cross, but they pocket a good portion of it "for future disasters". Speaking of 9/11, I remember when tons of money was coming into the red cross for the families of the disaster...but after a bit, they anounced that they received all they needed for that event and were putting the rest of the money "for future disasters" but if you asked the firefighters and the people on the ground and the families of the decesed if what they got was enough...I doubt they would say yes expecally since the money was sent to them but they never got it because the red cross decided to pocket it.
With that said...I dont deal with the red cross but with local charity and those who going out of the way to help...but these people are having a hard time connecting to those who want to help with all the hopla over OBL.
By the way the lady I met today is taking a trailor of supplies from middle Georgia to northern Georgia and Alabama...if anyone in the area is interested in dropping something off to her...just pm me and I will give you the information

Yes, an EF5 Tornado spawned in Miss. and then ran through North west Alabama on a SW to NE track.

I live in North Alabama and the last week has been mostly an inconvenience here for most but for those that directly had damage to property and/or loss of life then it has been a devastating week. I've lived in this area for 31 years and, yes, we get tornadoes quite a bit, even EF4s. What was out of the normal was the amount of strong tornadoes, usually, one strong tornado will spin up, but what we saw on April 27, was a series of strong storms that generated powerful tornadoes in multiple locations, which in turn spun up smaller tornadoes as well. The real danger is when the tornado touches down and stays down for a long period of time.

Luckily, the weather was not too hot! We lost electricity at about 5:30 p.m. on April 27th. The main transmission lines from the TVA were destroyed resulting in the loss of power for more than 500,000 people. Some radio stations were off the air, the weather alert station was knocked off, the Doppler radar tower was destroyed and at one time the Weather Alert people had to stop broadcasting and run for cover. The Nuclear facility at Browns Ferry lost power but backups provided emergency power and was a non-story.

The big story was the areas where tornadoes touched down Tuscaloosa, Cullman, Arab, Phil Campbell... and demolished whatever was in their path and then the loss of power for thousands. No power means, there is no electricity for the electric pumps at gas stations, no ATM, no debit cards and no refrigeration. On Thursday, there was not a single gas station that worked in a 25-30 mile radius. On, Friday I waited for 4 hours to get gas and was thankful that I could. Ice was hard to find as well as batteries and gas cans. Publix had their $hit together and was the first to get large generators (semi trucks) going to get the lights turned back on and provide some much needed supplies.

On one of the country radio stations they took phone calls and it was kinda like a phone version of social networking that helped a lot of people. A curfew was implemented which helped with taking some of the pressure off the Police force and cut down on burglaries and looting. All in all, I'm proud of our community, how it came together, volunteered and helped their fellow neighbor to get through this disaster.

In Alabama you can call 211 to find out info concerning charities and volunteering and all that good stuff.

Alabama sees these kinds of storms about twice every 100 years. The early warning systems and advances in detection and imaging since the 1974 outbreak saved many lives.

peace

Hope everyone is safe after the many killer tornadoes. There was one in Auckland recently too. They are a joy to me and a terror.

You are brave if you have faced one.

I saw a documentary about Greensburg, Kansas the other day. That one was almost 2 miles wide. 95% of the city was destroyed, but they are rebuilding and making every building in the town LEED Platinum certified.

It passed over our house and damaged our roof a bit...then touched down in Concord. Everything is gone. Just dirt and fallen trees. A wasteland. Unrecognizable. We get lost riding through there. Further down, where there are partial houses, people had to spray paint warnings on what was left of their homes. People came here from Florida to steal from them. To STEAL from people who have just lost EVERYTHING! I don't understand this world. Who even DOES that? Steals from people that have had something so horrible happen to them? It's sick.