As I sit here tonight, they are predicting severe weather for tomorrow evening. The biggest threat is north Alabama but they include large hail, strong winds, and a few strong tornados. I can handle the severe thunderstorms but tornados is another thing. I’m still not over the tornado outbreak of 2011 that wiped out nearly half of our town and killed eleven people in our community.
What I’m also doing is putting together a few videos that I’ve created. Most of which have been taken to try and boost the city’s morale. We have several city FaceBook pages and each one of them consist of negativity about our community. We lost a lot of homes and families right after the tornado. With these homes destroyed, many of which were never rebuilt and the families moved out. With that said, we lost a lot of tax money. Our city doesn’t have the money for a lot of the upkeep and people are complaining about the trash, businesses closing, and crime. What I’m trying to do is post these videos on these pages showing what we have to be proud of; A nice athletic complex, a nice school, a storm shelter, etc.
During the tornado of 2011, we thought we had lost the brand new school. Some kids and I were on a bus with the band heading to Orlando for a school trip when the tornado hit. There were all sorts of rumors that told of the school burning, people lying on the ground dead and many other stories. Most of which were true but the school did not catch on fire.
The tornado hit about a half a mile from the school and the athletic complex. Like I said, a lot of rumors floated around and we were happy that we didn’t lose either of these landmarks. My house was also spared thankfully. The athletic complex is one of the jewels of our community. Between the complex and our park (I don’t have a video of it as of yet), the kids of our community wouldn’t have a place to go and play. My kids were fortunate to be able to spend a great deal of time at the park and they couldn’t wait to go and play in the creek.
I think we take for granted these places that our city has supplied for us. We always focus on the negativity instead of the positive. I’m really hoping these storms that are predicted for tomorrow will pass us by. I’m really hoping!! I’ll let you guys know how we faired tomorrow night.