McDanal's Memoirs: April 27, 2011 My story (if you wanna read it)

For many of you , this is a day we will not soon forget. This is the day that brought 38 tornadoes to our state. That morning Jamie woke me up telling me that the weather was already getting bad, so I turned on the TV to learn that we were already in a Tornado warning. I went and got Eric and kept him with us while we waited for the storm to pass (JE was already there). After it was gone we learned that a small community in Tuscaloosa County, Coaling, had been hit. This just happened to be where one of my best friends lived! She was fine, however her neighbor lost her house. With so much going on and the promise of more bad weather to come, the schools made the decision to close for the day. As the day went on , the sun came out, but the weather guys kept warning us that this meant bad news because trouble was on the way. We all prayed that they would be wrong this time because they were calling for violent, long track tornadoes. I made it through the work day with no incidents, however around 3 when I was getting ready to leave I decided to check the weather first. That is when I saw a violent tornado marching through downtown Cullman, AL. I must admit my first thought was "Wow that is massive!" I could only imagine what damage it was doing and prayed everyone was safe. At this point I made a decision that the boys and I would stay at my parents house until Jamie got home from work, just in case. At mom and dad's I have to convince Eric that it is okay to go to his room because the weather is not bad, as it is still sunny outside. I even open the blinds for him to see and tell him if it starts getting dark he can come out. I did this so we could watch James Spann without Eric getting too upset. I let Jamie know where we were and found out he was still at work because they were under a tornado warning. He sent me this picture:

This is looking out the window where he works in Sumter County. They decided to wait a few minutes before they started their journey home. In Gainesville they stopped again to take another picture:

12 minutes after he sent me this picture I texted him that they were saying a tornado had been spotted in Fosters. When he called me at 4:55 we were headed to the bathroom with my parents. Eric was amazingly calm as he and mom got in the bathtub with a mattress over them. JE was asleep in my arms at this point, but woke up and climbed in the tub with them, but only for a minute before a spider was spotted and sent the two kids running! Eric was finally convinced to get back in the tub and JE got back in my lap where he fell back asleep. Dad turned on the radio, but twas not James Spann and I about had a stroke. We soon lost the radio station and dad went to crank up the TV ( of course I was looking for James Spann on the radio at that point... never did find him). Dad came back and we soon lost power. There we were, all four of us in this tiny bathroom huddled under baby mattresses and pillows and all of a sudden it was eerily quiet...Then you heard it, it was low at first, then got louder. It was terrifying! I don't think I will ever forget the sound. It sounded like a powerful wall of wind. We came out of our safe place and were amazed that everything around us was fine. There were a few more trees down at the dead end, but little did we know what had happened a couple miles from us. Jason, my brother, called me to let me know they were okay since it had gone down 15th street. He can tell you how shell shocked I sounded on the phone. I couldn't get a call out to Jamie, only one text to let him know that we were okay. We turned on the radio again to find that our town had been devastated by a large tornado that had begun south of town and went right through the heart of Tuscaloosa narrowly missing campus and the hospital. Through radio and facebook we learned of places that were no longer standing... Rosedale Apartments, Cedar Crest, Forest Lake, 15th and McFarland, Krispy Kreme, Wood Square, Full Moon BBQ, Milo's, Steak Out, then we learned that it went through the heart of Alberta City, where our church was... and no, our church was not spared. Our beautifully renovated sanctuary now had a sunroof! The front of our building collapsed onto the side walk and steps. There was corner missing out of the CLC and brick walls left crumbled. This damage was mild compared to the rest of the devastation in Alberta City, where as you most know blocks and blocks of houses were gone, the elementary school was gone, and the tornado kept going and went through Holt, probable coming within a mile of where we were at mom and dads. It was truly a horrifying event. I pray that God will comfort those in the path or who lost loved ones. Yes we have lost our church building, but our members are safe and we will rebuild! What a blessing that all members were accounted for! These next few years will be hard for Alberta Baptist, but we remain faithful that God will see us through and use us to help our hurting community! The support is pouring into Tuscaloosa and other communities hit by the deadly tornadoes. ( I know this is getting to be quite a long post, but I had to get it out! Below I will some pictures to further document.) The Saturday after the event, Jamie and I went to the church to see what we could do. I first walked around in disbelief. Then we helped pack up some of Pastor Larry's office. There were several people at our church who had come to help us. One group came from Mobile and helped to clear our parking lot. With a clear parking lot, the decision was made to have a noon prayer service there on Sunday:

It was great to be able to see everyone and to lean on each other during this time. As we were leaving the parking lot that day... the Reverend Jesse Jackson showed up and embraced Pastor Larry:

In closing I will include a few pics I took with my phone... if you want to see anymore, you can just google Tuscaloosa Tornado images and come up with hundreds. You can also read several others accounts of this deadly day in Alabama. I hope that you will now join me in praying for this community and the many others that were shattered that day. Thanks for bearing with me through this!!