Sunday, May 1, 2011

Sadder news

I have been hesitant to post this, but hey, this is the situation. We have had a good old-fashioned southern weather incident here, a Tornado From Hell. Actually, we had several dozen tornados in one day, but the mother-of-all-tornados was on the ground continuously from Mississippi to North Carolina, possibly the longest-tracking tornado ever recorded in North America, varying along its path from F3 to F5 strength, and from one-half to one mile wide. On its merry way through my state of Alabama, it followed a popular practice for tornados by following I-59 through the state, inflicting incredible damage on Tuscaloosa (Roll Tide), Birmingham, Gadsden, and dozens of smaller towns and communities. Several small towns are simply no more - they are gone, wiped off the map, nothing left standing. The death toll is almost 300 in Alabama alone, 3000 are injured, tens of thousands homeless, and there are still more than 200 people simply unaccounted for, though this number may go down as communications are reestablished.
A hard week.

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