Tuscaloosa Tornado

Hey - it's Matt, I'm making my first post to share our story about the recent tornado that hit Tuscaloosa and damaged our house. We are so lucky to be completely OK and for our house to be in as good as shape as it is.

Here is an aerial view of Tuscaloosa, with the stadium in the upper right hand corner. Our house is directly south of the stadium (about the same position as the stadium in this picture, but on the left side of the photo).

Wednesday, April 27

The Tornado hit Wednesday afternoon around 4:30. Luckily, none of us were at home. The weather forecasters had predicted strong storms all day and Annie's work let her out early. Annie went home, packed a diaper bag and then joined me on campus, as we figured the basement of the business school would be safer than our 70 year old house surrounded by huge trees. Rebecca's day care is in the basement of a church and so we knew she would be just as safe there. Plus, none of us really thought Tuscaloosa would be hit directly by a tornado (just 2 weeks ago we all stayed at home during the previous tornado warning). But thankfully we took greater precaution this time and didn't stay at home. Our plan was to stay at school until the first wave a storms passed and then head to the daycare to get Rebecca for the rest of the night.

So Annie and I piled into the bottom floor of Bidgood Hall with numerous other students. Everyone had their laptops tuned to the local news and we watched live as the Tornado hit Tuscaloosa. Here is the actual coverage we watched (and check out the link at the end of the post for more incredible videos).

At this point, Annie and I are freaking out a little. Rebecca's day care is south of campus, in between our house and the university. I knew the storm was south of Rebecca and I thought it was even south of our house, but I have never wanted to have Rebecca in my arms as much as I did then. As soon as the storm passed, I left to go pick up Rebecca.

Supposedly, there was to be just an hour break before more storms were expected. Even though the plan was for me to pick up Rebecca and then head back to campus, I just had to check on our neighborhood. I left the daycare, headed south down 10th avenue and thought we were going to be fine, until the intersection at Hargrove Rd. There, you can see down 10th avenue and to the destruction at Rosedale apartments. I turned left onto Hargrove toward Glendale Gardens but couldn't get any further because of all the downed trees. Here is the entrance to our neighborhood, 20 minutes after the storm.

Rebecca and I parked the car and walked in. Once I saw our house was still standing, I went back to campus and left Rebecca with Annie. The weather forecast had been updated and no additional storms were expected (thank God) and so Annie took Rebecca to Heather and Joey's house and I returned home. Our house and street -

The back of our house and the inside damage.

At this point it was getting dark. and so I went to meet Annie and Rebecca. Heather and Joey are our friends and they live in Northport, just 10 minutes from our house. They have graciously let us stay with them until we can get this mess sorted out.

That night, when I laid in bed I was so thankful to have Annie with me and Rebecca next to us in the pack-n-play.

Thursday April 28th

I awoke early Thursday and headed back home to start the cleanup process. While I was thankful we were all OK, I have to admit that I was a little annoyed at the whole thing - the sheer amount of additional work I knew I was going to have to deal with over the next several weeks. That was until I saw the rest of my neighborhood.

As you see in the video of my house/street posted above, I could not see the rest of my street because of the downed trees. It wasn't until I climbed on my roof that I saw the devastation -

Our neighborhood, Glendale Gardens, is just a 1/4 mile long single road ending with a cul-de-sac. We are in the middle of the street and there are only 1 or 2 houses past ours that can be saved. Here is a view from the end of the street looking back

And here is a video I found of our street (start at the 2:00 minute mark and go to the 3:00 minute mark).

After seeing this destruction, I was so thankful for the relative minimal damage my house sustained. I was complaining about picking up pieces of glass and debris from my house, while my neighbors were picking up their house and personal belongings from the piles of debris. It quickly put things into perspective.

Joey and my friends from my Ph.D. program, Kelsey (and her husband Clark), George, Steve, Sarah (and her husband Brian), and Ben came over Thursday and we focused on getting the inside of the house in order. Bradley was also there and got his mom to drive in from over an hour away to bring chainsaws (she is awesome). We started clearing limbs away from the house and cleaning up the inside and we made great progress -

Friday April 29

I woke up Friday morning and headed to the Lowe's parking lot where State Farm has an emergency tent set up. There I found out that they would pay to have the trees removed from the house, but the remaining debris removal was my responsibility. At that moment I started freaking out again because I didn't know what I was going to do.

As I started to clean up the debris, I again became annoyed at the entire situation. That was until a large group of people came through my back yard performing a search and rescue for their lost friend. Apparently a couple was missing and the wife/girlfriend was found a few houses down and they hoped he would be close by. It quickly put things into perspective and I again felt so lucky and so grateful.

So, George came over and he and I spent the day taking one piece at a time out to the curb. I knew there was no way we could finish on our own and so I sent out a request for help. And boy did I get it the next day.

Saturday April 30

Never have I felt so loved as I did when the number of people showed up to my house to help clean up Saturday morning. Hopefully I can remember them all. From the PhD program we had Mary and her husband and their 3 boys, Sara and Brian, Kelsey and Clark, Megan and her parents from Atlanta, George, and Ben and his wife, Jamey. George also had some of his friends show up as did Mary. My "Macc" friends also showed up from Birmingham. Chris and Ashley, Andy and Sarah, Marshall and Careybeth, and Julia and Andrew. Also our friends from Tuscaloosa were there, including Joey and Heather, Wayne and Elliott.

But the crew didn't stop there. After finishing with my yard, we all headed down the street and cleaned a few more of my neighbors'. It was impressive, to say the least.

I finally called it a day around 6:30 and headed home to see Rebecca and Annie. Annie has been great these last few days, helping me deal with all the mess. And of course, Rebecca is just perfect as always.

Sunday May 1

Today was a day of rest and admin. Trying to line up the contractors, tree trimmers, tracking down insurance adjusters and responding to students emails (they cancelled the rest of the semester, postponed graduation and made finals optional at the University of Alabama). But tomorrow we will start again (and have another post with more pictures of Rebecca).

Additional Pictures and videos:

For more videos of the Tornado - go here

http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/nation/2011/04/top-5-tuscaloosa-tornado-videos

For more pictures of our house and neighborhood - go here

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=112659746024256678064&target=ALBUM&id=5600986017720654913&authkey=Gv1sRgCJ6mvc-U0Zj5PQ&feat=email