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April 21, 1998
On Wednesday, the 8th of April- I'd been at work a little while when
one of my co-workers, David Grinstead casually mentioned that the weather
is supposed to be really bad later in the day. I winced when he said this,
because David has a hobby of studying weather. He actually likes
watching "The Weather Channel". His wife bought him a subscription
to Weather Watcher magazine for his birthday.
Put simply, the guy knows his weather. David also has a way of sometimes
understating things, so I'd expected the worst that evening.
I got off at 5 p.m., and on the way to pick up my son from day care,
and noticed the darkening sky in the south-west. A very bad sign if you
live in Alabama. Although most meteorologists won't tell you this, tornadoes
travel exclusively from southwest to northeast. I snatched Grayson up
an by the time that I got back out to my car, the rain had already started.
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We stopped briefly by my wife's' beauty salon on the way home and
met her newest employee, Randy. Kristi told me that she'd be late
that night because Randy needed to get settled into the salon. Kristi
followed us to the house to pick up some supplies and go back to
the shop. We got home about 6 and I turned on the television shortly
after she left for the shop again. Almost immediately, the station
announced that there was a tornado warning in Northport- the town
that I live in. I called my wives' car phone and panicked when there
was no answer. So, I tried the shop and thankfully, she answered
the phone. I told her about the tornado warning and they both immediately
left the shop. It normally takes her about ten minutes to drive
home, but it seemed like an eternity. When she got home, she told
me that she was directly behind a sheriff's deputy going 75 m.p.h..
After working for newspapers in Alabama for 8 years, I've come
to take tornado warnings very seriously, so Grayson and I went into
the bathroom located in the center of our home and closed the door.
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The tops of trees ripped from the trunk is a sure sign of a tornado.
© 1998 Mark Lent
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The few minutes that she was from the house seemed like hours.
It worried me that my wife was driving in this kind of weather.
I was looking out onto our road in the kitchen when the power went
out- another bad sign. Grayson and I moved back into the bathroom
until we heard a car drive up. We were still under a tornado warning,
but went out to see if Kristi needed any help. We got back into
the dark house and decided that the hallway was a little better
place to be. We brought a mattress from Grayson's room out into
the hallway and listened to the radio.
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The foundation of the mobile home that now rest in a tree looms
empty in the afternoon sun.
© 1998 Mark Lent
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For the next two hours, there was tornado warning after tornado warning.
If there was a lull in the tornado warnings, it was quickly replaced by
a severe thunderstorm warning. Around 9p.m., we finally got Grayson to
sleep (in the hallway), and my wife and I felt comfortable enough to go
into the living room of our house.
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About this time, we heard a loud banging noise in the back yard.
I looked out toward our utility shed and saw a golf ball sized chunk
of ice hit the roof of the shed. Thank God for garages- both of
our cars (a 96 Honda Accord and a 98 Mercedes C-280) were tucked
in and exempt from the damaging hail.
Shortly after, another major storm passed over our home.
Kristi went to bed and I stayed up listening to the radio, thinking
that I might need to get her and Grayson back into the hallway again.
It's now 11 p.m. and the power fills the house again. I tried to
go to bed, but didn't sleep much that night because I was worried
about the weather.
The next morning, I listened to the radio on the way into work
and the DJ said that 19 were confirmed dead in a three county area
and 86 injured. The hardest hit areas were in Tuscaloosa, Jefferson
and Shelby counties. The announcer went on to say that the community
of Oak Grove was especially hard hit- totally demolishing one of
the schools there. He also said that in Tuscaloosa, an area on
State Road 171 near Rue Road had extensive damage. I thought "Wow-
that's close to the house". By air, I'd guess only three miles.
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The remains of a mobile home foundation lay hanging in an oak
tree. A woman was in the home while it traveled the nearly 200 feet
from the foundation to the final resting place in the tree. Miraculously,
she walked away from the wreckage.
© 1998 Mark Lent
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When I got to work, I learned that one of our co-workers owned
one of the houses on State Road 171 hit by the winds. He has now
lost everything- a home, two cars and a lifetime of memories. I
felt badly- I haven't talked to him too much at McAbee, but the
times that I have he's been very nice. It's tragic that bad things
happen to good, hard working people. To make matters worse, he'd
also buried his wife a little while back.
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I was struck at the carnival atmosphere that the site had. There
were literally dozens of cars filled with on-lookers who pulled
up and walked around the tornado site while I was there- some had
traveled 40 miles to see the wreckage.
© 1998 Mark Lent
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Fast forward now to Easter Sunday- the updated death toll is now
at 36 dead, 141 injured and 9 in critical condition. There's also
one person still missing, who is presumed dead.
My wife and I spent the day by going to Easter service at our church
and then going directly to the town of Alabaster, which is a little
over an hour from our home and is south of Birmingham to visit her
father and have an Easter Sunday dinner.
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The lines between garage and home become blurred as debris lays
scattered. Note the small marks on the car from debris impact.
© 1998 Mark Lent
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Kristi's grandmother also happened to be there visiting from the town
of Fayette, which is 50 miles north of Tuscaloosa. After all of the eating
and Easter egg hunting was done, we decided to head toward the house and
took Kristi's grandmother with us. The plan was for us to go home and
then for me to take her on to Fayette while Kristi and Grayson stayed
home.
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To get to Fayette, I normally travel up State Road 171- a 45 mile
direct shot to Fayette. We passed the Rue Road sign and I started
thinking about the Tornado victims and wondering if we'd see anything.
We rounded a sharp curve and went up a hill- after cresting the
hill, It felt like I'd been placed in a war zone. I slowed down
to survey the damage as we went by and was astounded by what I saw.
Then, I looked up and there it was- a decapitated tree. It's one
of those tell-tale signs of a tornado and is one of the best ways
to tell if it's simply straight line winds or a tornado. Straight
line winds tend to uproot trees while tornadoes simply cut off the
top of the trees- leaving a trunk with no branches in its' erect
position. It's an unusual site if you've never seen something like
this before, but I had and knew immediately that this was a tornado.
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A lawn mower is distorted from the 250mph winds
© 1998 Mark Lent
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The damage dominated much of our conversation to Fayette and was all
I thought about on the way back. It was on the way back that I decided
to write about this and so, stopped and shot the pictures that go with
this journal.
Simply driving by a site like this is totally different from walking
by it. At walking speed, you see things that you'd never see driving in
a car. Near the road was Nancy Drew and the Mysterious Letter,
sinks, toilets, pots and pans. When walking through this kind of scene,
you realize that this isn't just a house- It's someone's life and memories.
It also makes you realize that the random wrath of nature is unjust.
Taking a close look at the scene with a 400mm lens, you can see things
that the eye can't. Like Pine needles driven into the bark of other trees,
small indentations that look like shrapnel hitting an automobile. Then,
one item caught my attention, but was too far to photograph clearly. A
small logo on a baseball cap that I recognized- a McAbee logo.
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I've photographed a lot of tornado damage, but can't remember seeing
such damage concentrated into one small area. Walking along the
road and looking at the scene gave me a feeling of reverence-
a sorrow for those who died in this storm and pity for those who
are surviving them. The news that we see on the television typically
is an aerial view showing the destructive path of the twister- these
views don't show the detail. This to me, is what hits home.
I got to the house and was met at the door by my little boy- who
had been waiting for me to come home so that I could throw his new
ball that he got for Easter (a Velcro wrapped ball with the complementary
glove- great for a 2 year old to play catch with...). We were out
in the yard, the temperature was 75 and the sky was clear- a perfect
day. It made me think that I was lucky. The path of the tornado
went to within half a mile of my house- yet I still have a home
and a healthy little boy. I feel very lucky.
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One of the daily rituals that my son
and I do is allowing him to sit in my lap when driving up our very
long driveway. He loves to "drive the car" and is something
that he looks forward to now. We normally park the car and I open
the door, Grayson jumps out and normally lands on his feet. This week,
he fell and landed squarely on his bottom and began to cry. Normally,
when Grayson gets hurt, we "Kissdabooboo" and I guess he
expected the same. He got up crying and looked at me and said
"Daddy- kiss my hiney...". I loved it. |
Mark Lent
April 21, 1998
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