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Tag Archives: tornado

All is Well at the Home Front; Well, Sort of

20 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by Tim Hughes Living with CML in Nature, Photography

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Tags

Damage, dashcam, Idiot, sideswiped, tornado

We had some pretty bad storms come through the northern part of our state yesterday afternoon and evening.  There was an EF3 tornado hit one of our colleges and destroyed a lot of student dorms and apartments.  Luckily, most of the students were away for spring break.  I’m not sure where the students will live once school resumes.  Thankfully there were no fatalities.  Although, we keep hearing of one fatality through social media but not through official sources.

I had a small altercation with another vehicle this afternoon as I’m trying to enter the interstate.  As you can see by the sign I was clearly in the right.  If I hadn’t slowed down we would have sideswiped each other.  I’m not sure who’s fault it would have been but at times I wished I had a machine gun attached to my bumper.

365 Day Photo Challenge 140/365 “Here Today Gone Tomorrow”

22 Friday May 2015

Posted by Tim Hughes Living with CML in Photography

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365 Day Photo Challenge, Alabama, Arson, Cycling, Fire, Photography, tornado

DSCN2477

My cycling route takes me through mostly subdivisions just so that I will stay off the busy streets in our city.  My route does take me on two of the most busiest streets that we have but I’m only on there for maybe a mile or two.  Just enough to get some motorists mad for having to wait until I get up the hill.

As I’ve stated before, our city was hit by a massive EF4 tornado back in 2011.  Only one quarter of our city’s homes were rebuilt.  Most packed up what ever was left and walked away and never looked back. There are some houses that still remain that were severely damaged that for whatever the reason were never torn down nor rebuilt, just boarded up and left to rot.  The above picture was just one of those houses.  I past there yesterday evening and noticed that this house was all boarded up and no one had lived there for a least a couple of years.  Today, well, you can tell what happen to it. I don’t want to lay blame here but I have a feeling that this was a case of arson.  With no power to the house an electrical fire would seem to be out of the question.  We had no storms last night so we can rule out a lightning strike.  We’ve had a few cases where the homeowners had issues with their insurance companies and a accidental fire would be the only way out.

Have a good weekend everyone!!

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 115/365 “Four Years Ago”

27 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by Tim Hughes Living with CML in Photography

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2011 Tornado, 365 Photo Challenge, Alabama, Band, Damage, High School, Photo, Photography, Pleasant Grove, tornado

128

Our little community was hit by an EF-4 tornado and as you can see it destroyed much our our great city.  Thirteen people died on this date four years ago.  A total of 64 tornados were recorded that day with 250 recorded deaths for the state of Alabama.

My son and I woke up to the news that morning of a tornado that hit Pell City, a city east of us.  It did a lot of damage including my sister in law’s house.  My son and I was getting ready to leave out on a trip with the high school band heading to Orlando, Florida leaving behind my wife and two young twin daughters.  Little did I know that I would later on fear that they had perished in the storm that would hit around 4 pm later that evening.

We were on a bus near Tallahassee Florida when we started getting messages that a EF-5 tornado had hit Tuscaloosa and was heading toward Pleasant Grove, my hometown.  We all watched in fear as we saw the tornado inch closer and closer to our city.  I had called my wife and told her to take cover because it was on it’s way.  The radar program I had installed on my computer showed the path leading dead center of Pleasant Grove.  I hung up the phone not knowing if I would ever see my wife and girls again.

I watched in horror as the storm reports started coming in on the tv on the bus.  Reports also started coming in from loved ones on the bus.  Friends, neighbors and loved ones had died and their homes destroyed.  Reports of fires and heavy damage all over our city were flowing freely throughout the bus but I could not get through to my wife.  I tried her cell phone, the house phone and I even called the neighbors phone.  It wouldn’t even ring.  All circuits were busy.  I couldn’t text my wife because she didn’t want to spend the money on text messaging.  I cursed her for that.  After about 15 minutes of not knowing I started getting that sinking feeling that I had indeed spoke to my wife and kids for the last time and I would not see them alive again.  People all over the bus were crying because of the news of their loved ones either being hurt or loss of life.  The lady behind me knew I was concerned and started trying to calm me down.  I went to my son who had also been trying to contact his mother and I could tell he had been crying too.  We held each other in our arms for a few minutes.  Other people started trying to call our numbers but were having the same luck.  Finally, after what seemed a lifetime, I finally was able to get the phone to ring.  I can’t remember just how many times the phone rung but I remember thinking to myself that even if the phone rang it didn’t mean that she was still alive.  I also remember hearing the most beautiful sound that I could ever hear at that time, the sound of my wife answer the phone.

The tornado had missed the house by about five hundred yards.  She had went outside and looked around and saw no damage, just a few limbs down and a lot of insulation all over the yard.  She wouldn’t know until the next day just how close we were to losing everything we had.  At that time she didn’t know just how close the tornado came and just how much damage was done to our city. We were truly blessed.

The buses were instructed to stop at the next rest area and the parents and band leaders met to decide what we needed to do.  Several of the parents wanted to go home and check on their homes.  The decision was made to continue on to Orlando and let those parents that wanted to, make arrangement to rent a car and let them go on home.  All the kids were made to stay on the bus and head to Orlando.  We had some opposition from the kids but the kids needed to stay out of the way of the cleanup.  Later on I think the kids realized that we just wanted what was best for them.  It all worked out for the best.

This happened on a Wednesday and we stayed in Orlando until the following Sunday.  The ride home was a somber one.  The realization had set in and we were about to find out first hand what type of damage was done to our families.

Our city is still trying to rebuild from the 2011 tornado.  Many people packed up and left never to return.  The band went from nearly 200 students to 80 in less than a year. The same effects were felt in the high school.  We’re slowly getting back to where we were but it’s going to take some time.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge Day Twenty-One “A Look Back”

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by Tim Hughes Living with CML in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

365 Photo Challenge, Band, Fatalities, HDR, Photography, Storms, tornado

Tornado Damage 2011 060_tonemapped

This picture is still hard to look at.  April 27th, 2011 an F-4 Tornado ripped through our little community.  We lost 12 people and over 600 homes that evening.  We were one of the lucky ones.  We had some tree damage and debris in our yard but nothing compared to what happened just down the road.

The young man in the picture was one of my scouts.  His dad is there with him trying to dig out his bedroom.  They found the water bed intact and still full of water while everything else was destroyed.  What your seeing in the picture was in fact two houses.  The storm picked up the neighbors house and flipped it on top of the other.

It’s a miracle more people were not killed in this storm.  One thing that I feel was a huge contributor is that the high school band and 86 of it’s members were on their way to Orlando for a band trip.  If those kids had been home I feel the fatality would have been much higher.

365 Day Challenge Day Four

04 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by Tim Hughes Living with CML in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

365 Day Photo Challenge, 50 miler, Boy Scouts, Memorial, News, Photography, tornado

DSCN0359

I mentioned it in yesterday’s post and since then I haven’t been able to think much of anything else.  We had some pretty bad storms last night but luckily the tornado’s didn’t happen.

If you follow the link in the photo above it will take you to a site where I have posted all the pictures that were taken during the unveiling of the memorial our Boy Scout Troop did in honor of all those that perished during the tornado event of April 2011.   As you can tell by some of the pictures it was a local news media event.  Three television new’s media plus two local news paper media personal were there to cover the event.  It was a very emotional event to say the least.  It really brought our community together.

365 Day Challenge Day Three

03 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Tim Hughes Living with CML in Uncategorized

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Tags

365 Photo Challenge, Rain, Storms, tornado, Weather

Day Three

It’s been raining all week, in fact, we are currently under a Tornado Watch. Our community is still rebuilding since our last tornado which came through here back in 2011. Missed our house about half a mile.  Our community looked like a bomb had went off. Hopefully, we will miss any bad weather that may come our way.

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