Ten years later, April 27 tornado outbreak still scars Alabama landscape and hearts
The April 2011 tornadoes devastated lives and communities like Concord. (Wynter Byrd / Alabama NewsCenter)
It is a day etched in the psyche of Alabamians who lived through it. A day that literally altered Alabama’s landscape and affected, forever, countless families.
A day that began with foreboding weather forecasts that became a reality more terrible than ever thought possible.
Ten years later, memories of the multiple killer tornadoes that scoured and scarred Alabama on Wednesday, April 27, 2011, linger like a virulent sore.
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And yet, time moves on – as have the lives of the people and communities who were affected a decade ago. Children born in the days before and right after those traumatic days are approaching adolescence. Homes and businesses have been rebuilt. Some communities are stronger than they were, having taken lessons from that day and channeled the experience into efforts to make the places we live better and safer. In other spots, challenges for a full recovery remain.
Over the next several days, Alabama NewsCenter will look back at what happened in April 2011, where we are today in the context of those horrifying days, and how Alabamians devastated by the death and destruction of April 2011 have pressed on.
Through all the reporting conducted for this series, one thing is powerfully clear: April 2011 is not forgotten. Nor will it be, for a very long time to come.
Days of unspeakable destruction
The terrible tornados of April 2011 actually began their assault on Alabama a couple weeks before April 27.
On April 15, 2011, a total of 45 tornadoes crossed portions of the state. It was a single-day record that would be shattered less than two weeks later. Seven people died in connection with the April 15 twisters.
That day’s tornadoes were part of a three-day outbreak on April 14-16 that raked the country’s midsection and Southeast, producing 178 tornadoes across 16 states.
It was an event still fresh on many Alabamians’ minds when conditions became ripe again for extremely dangerous storms. Today, the storms of April 25-28 are officially known as the 2011 “Super Outbreak.” They caused the most damage, by far, in Mississippi and Alabama, but also affected states from Arkansas to Virginia and even locations as far away as New York and southern Canada.
Dan Sibley remembers the Alabama April 27, 2011 tornadoes that destroyed his home from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
In the days leading up to April 27, forecasters warned that severe weather was likely early that morning across Mississippi and Alabama. They also said conditions could turn even more dangerous in the afternoon.
Around 4:30 a.m. on April 27, a squall line began producing severe storms and tornadoes from Pickens to Fayette counties. By sunrise, tornadoes had touched down from St. Clair and Tuscaloosa counties to Lake Guntersville.
Just before 6 a.m., an EF2 tornado skipped through the Cahaba Heights area of Jefferson County, ripping apart trees, homes and businesses. By around 7:30 a.m., the first wave of storms were petering out. But more were on the horizon.
At 1:45 p.m., Alabama time, the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, issued an extraordinary Tornado Watch. It contained unusually ominous language, describing conditions for much of Alabama as “particularly dangerous” with likelihood high for extremely damaging tornadoes, severe winds and dangerous hail.
At 2:43 p.m., an EF4 tornado tore through central Cullman, damaging more than 800 homes and nearly 100 businesses before moving into Morgan and Marshall counties. About 20 minutes later, the single deadliest tornado in Alabama history – one that reached EF5 strength, with winds speeds reaching 210 mph – ripped through Hackleburg, Phil Campbell and Tanner, traveling more than 118 miles across six counties. It killed 72 people and caused at least 145 injuries.
Another tornado ripped through Pickensville and Cordova, killing 10 people along its 128-mile journey. Yet another struck Marion County and Hamilton, killing six. At almost the same moment, another tornado, an EF4, killed 11 people while tearing through Jackson and DeKalb counties.
At 4:43 p.m., an EF4 tornado with winds up to 190 mph touched down in Greene County and began its deadly journey toward Tuscaloosa. Across central Alabama, television viewers watched in horror as the tornado tracked straight through the heart of the Druid City, barely missing DCH Regional Medical Center. The tornado ultimately traveled 80 miles, killing 43 people including six University of Alabama students. Another nine died later from injuries related to the storm, according to city of Tuscaloosa figures. Whole sections of several Tuscaloosa neighborhoods were flattened.
That same storm was soon threatening metro Birmingham. The tornado tore through the Pratt City and Smithfield neighborhoods of the city and then turned north, just before it reached downtown. It crushed portions of Pleasant Grove, Concord and McDonald Chapel. Twelve years earlier, Pleasant Grove was devastated by another killer tornado. In all on April 27, 65 people died and more than 1,500 people were injured across three counties before this one terrible tornado faded away.
As evening fell, the tornadoes kept coming. A twister in Greene, Hale and Bibb counties killed seven. In northeast Alabama, an EF4 tornado scraped across Fyffe, Rainsville and Sylvania, killing more than 25. Another EF4, spawned from the same supercell that pummeled Tuscaloosa and Jefferson counties, tore through the Shoal Creek valley of St. Clair County, killing 22 before crossing into Georgia. Shortly after 8 p.m., another damaging EF4 took a meandering path through Elmore, Tallapoosa and Chambers counties, including ripping through areas around Lake Martin.
By the end of an unspeakably horrific day, 62 tornadoes had touched down across a huge swath of the state. The day’s destruction traumatized Alabamians, destroying towns and neighborhoods, leveling businesses and shattering families.
As many as 252 people died and up to 2,200 others were injured in Alabama in connection with the tornadoes of April 27, according to varying official sources.
It was a new one-day record for the number of tornadoes to hit the state, one that still stands. Incredibly, the 62 tornadoes tallied in fewer than 24 hours, was just a few shy of the average number of twisters (65) that Alabamians typically experience in an entire year. The combined length of the tornadoes’ damage-path: more than 691 miles.
In all, more than 300 tornadoes, spanning multiple states, were ultimately attributed to the April 25-28 Super Outbreak.
Shirley Jackson recalls the phone call she got from her mother on April 27, 2011 from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
On April 29, then-President Barack Obama toured Tuscaloosa with first lady Michelle Obama. “I’ve never seen devastation like this,” the president said.
The state and federal governments mobilized to help. So did scores of people, nonprofits, corporations and other organizations.
The response and outreach were uplifting. But the impact, pain and emotional damage were just sinking in. And the healing – it was only barely beginning.
Tomorrow: Alabama NewsCenter focuses on what happened in Tuscaloosa on April 27, 2011, and what’s changed there in the decade since.
