1

I hope all our morons and their families are safe and sound.

2

Good Lord.  I am so shaken by this.  It has flooded me with memories of April 3, 1974.  Never thought I would see another day like that. 

 

May God be with all the stricken.

3 In answer to the deleted question, I'd estimate 100%.

Meanwhile, any aid you can manage, on top of the multitudes of prayers, will be greatly appreciated.  The Red Cross is already waist-deep in the effort, and there are various local groups at work too--I'll try to gather a list and post it for anyone interested.

4 Oh, and there was much chortling in the Washington Post comments today about how those Racist Crackers Who Hate Our Most Wonderfulest President Evah!!1!11!  just got what they deserved.  Nevermind that some of the hardest hit communities were in the Black Belt.

5
Has Al Gore blamed it on Global Warming, yet?

6 Oh, and a shout out to our friends in North Texas, who aren't waiting for some punk commenting on a smart military blog to pitch in.  Good on y'all!

7 The edge of the storm system (contrasted with the centre of the storm system) that went through Southern Ontario this morning was strong enough to blow chunks of bark off the trees in our neighbourhood.

8 A fair roundup of locally organized efforts can be found here, for those so able and not enthused by the Red Cross.  (Obviously this is most useful for nearby Morons, but hey, you never know.)

9 I'd be there to ummmmmmm, console the good uhhh, people of Alabama, but I'm too busy doing the Oprah farewell ummm, tour.

10 Posted by: TEH WON at April 28, 2011 07:06 PM (ASdeo)

He actually did swing through.  Probably checking out the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail for damage, but it's better than he managed for the last outbreak.

11

Hell, I saw video and photos of vehicles that had all the paint blown off.    That is some serious shit.

Prayers go out to everyone who is suffering, and especially for those familes that have lost loved ones.  You can replace 'stuff'.     This is just horrific.

12 Has Al Gore claimed credit yet?

13 Uhhh, sorry...I, uhhhh, can't keep up -- 57 states is an awful lot to ummmm, cover.

14 Jane D'oh? Please raise your hand.

15 We had a day of tornadoes here in the central Texas area some years ago.
An off the charts monster that pulled highways from their beds and flung not only the houses but their concrete foundations miles away killed dozens. The terror of seeing it coming pales to the terror of only being able to hear it coming.
God have mercy on us all.

16 I was married just outside pleasent Grove AL. My family lives in oak grove that suffered an f5 about 8 years ago. Yes, It's a BFD, It's as destructive as fire and water. Probably more deadly. Ill be praying.

17

“Today was a fun day,” Obama said at his first fundraising event at Corzine’s apartment. “Nobody checked my ID at the door. But it was also a serious day because part of what happened this morning was me trying to remind the press and trying to remind both parties that what we do in politics is not a reality show. It’s serious.”

That is the putz at his fundraiser last night.   What a total fucking asshole.

18 I (stupidly) did click over to DU.  First comment I read said, Uppity black man in Bama, Be careful Mr. President.

Evidently, they are unfamiliar with black people in Alabama and might panic further at the sight.

19 Until I saw the entire 6pm FOX Bret Baier news, I was composing a letter to him. Basically his NOAA experts shot down the climate change crap. It did happen in April 1974, which does not still break my heart.

20 Alabama disaster relief info

21

Unbelievable. True catastrophe.

My usually useless prayers for the people who lived through this and those who didn't.

22

Anywhere that severe weather is potential, people should get a weather radio. It's as necessary as a smoke detector. Night time tornados are the worst for obvious reasons.

I have an Oregon Scientific and it cost me about $45 a few years ago.

I'd bet that most of the deaths could have been prevented if they had a weather radio.

23 If I clicked over to Democratic Underground, what do you think the chances are there's some chuckling over this?

Mainstream non-political media feature more cracka death dances than DU does. They're moderates now, in comparison to what the average Democrat has become over the last four years or so.

I'm serious.

24
This is why I give no shit about Syria.

25 AoSHQ's DarkLord©?

I posted your link at Free Dominion for our Canadian friends.

26 To add to the disaster Obama is now going to Alabama tomorrow to survey the damage. Must have looked at his poll numbers.

27
We have friends in Candia?

28 Salvation Army is also taking donations; you can designate "April 2011 tornadoes" and they will send the aid there.

29
and Canadia?

30 27, Where the heck is Candia? Is that next to shitsburg?

31
yeah, just outside Chutesandladdersville

32 Where's my fundraiser bein' held?

33 University of South Alabama College of Medicine is raising money for relief efforts: The most essential items would be water, toiletries, food, clothes, first-aid items, etc. Please drop your donation off in the Student Affairs Conference Room (MSB 1005) at the medical school (by Rhonda's office) by noon on May 6th. If you would prefer to provide a monetary contribution towards the purchase of donations, please let me know. Student point of contact: aboone429@gmail.com Faculty point of contact: rhondasmith@usouthal.edu

34 To add to the disaster Obama is now going to Alabama tomorrow to survey the damage. Must have looked at his poll numbers.

Posted by: Donna at April 28, 2011 07:22 PM (bdE9c)

I'm sure he'll have something to say with a destroyed school as a backdrop with Federal and local EMA officials flanking him.

35 I blame Obama. When the fuck is the Spike Lee documentary documenting Obama's dastardly plan to kill all these people coming out?

36 Not to forget our neighbors, but Georgia and Mississippi also did get hit in this outbreak, though understandably we're getting the bulk of the play right now.  If I can find good listings for efforts in those states, I'll forward them as well.

37 Unbelievable.

At least we have strong leadership to lean on and rely on and inspire us ....

Oops.

Which golf course is Teh Won patronizing today?

38 27
We have friends in Candia?
Posted by: Leftover Soothsayers

Typos aside, you sure do. I'm one of FD's founding members- I used to post a lot ( and a lot more ) on Free Republic, but after Miss Emily slipped her cable I just didn't have the heart for it anymore- so I alighted back at Free Dominion. They don't have too many Kooks there- it's a small board, about 9,800 members.

39 Off, sock...sorry.

40

I do not make typos.

Ever.

41
Obama is leading...

by ignoring the problem.

42
It's past time for a committee on preventing tornadoes.

43 Barry is going to visit? Haven't they suffered enough?  Had he been invited to the wedding royale he would miss a storm-damage photo op.

44 Unbelievable.

At least we have strong leadership to lean on and rely on and inspire us ....

The America I know and love is the pioneer of do-it-yourself leadership.  Funny, the things that remind us.

45 Fucking Obama, he hate white people, so he turn on him twister machine!

46 It has flooded me with memories of April 3, 1974.  Never thought I would see another day like that. 

 May God be with all the stricken.

Posted by: rockmom

I was a handful of miles away on April 3 when an F5 (F6?) flattened half of Xenia in 2 minutes and killed 40 people.

This is terrible, and terrifying. Unitl you have seen what something like this can do close up, it just seems unreal.

God be with all the folks in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham and points in between, who were struck.

47 We use to call tornadoes the Finger of the Devil. I think it is accurate. Prayers to all who have lost loved ones and I hope the recovery process of loss of homes and businesses goes quickly.

48
They say the reactor near there shut itself down as a preventative measure.

So that's good.

49 #46 Me too. We went on a field trip a little while after and the bus driver, who was a Xenia resident, took us on a tour of her neighborhood. The National Guard was still there blocking everyone else from entering or leaving town.

To this day my anxiety dreams are tornadoes.

50 O/T, but here's an important breaking Supreme Court decision:

Supreme Court rejects class-action arbitration

In a resounding victory for businesses, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a company can require its customers or employees to arbitrate disputes individually rather than joining forces in a class action.

The 5-4 decision overturned a 2005 California Supreme Court ruling allowing customers who signed arbitration agreements to form a class with other buyers who had similar grievances, even if the arbitration clause prohibited class actions.

[ . . . ]

Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion - which said businesses facing class actions "will be pressured into settling questionable claims" - could also signal difficulties for a pending sex-discrimination case on behalf of at least 500,000 past and present female employees of Wal-Mart. The court is due to rule by the end of June on whether that case can proceed as a class action.
-------
Maybe Gabe can opine on this later.

51 You should have elected me instead of this doofus.

52 Nuclear meltdowns are potentially very dangerous events.  There was a meltdown of a plant in Japan recently that was a sobering reminder of this.

The nuclear reactor in Alabama shut down before such a meltdown occurred.  This is a good thing because it lessens the likelihood of something bad happening.

53

Wow, this is really devastating and sad.

When I was a kid, I had two great fears:  tornadoes and quicksand.  (I think the former stemmed from watching The Wizard of Oz, not sure where the latter came from).  I lived in Pennsylvania. 

54 I hate that people had to die in these tornadoes.

55 *burp*

56

It has flooded me with memories of April 3, 1974.  Never thought I would see another day like that. 

 

May 3, 1999 - Oklahoma City.  Came way too close to me.  My pre-warning plan?  First:  Realize that it's springtime in the south and consult internet and local weather forecasts in the morning.  Then watch the sky periodically if forcasters say somethings in the wind.  It's simple situational awareness. 

57

I saw that CBS 42 report of the tornado in Tuscaloosa, and I am still so mad that I could smack that guy. In a 3 minute report he never -- not even ONCE -- told people to take shelter. Never told them to go to an interior room or basement, never told them to get out of their cars and get into a drainage ditch or overpass. Almost all the deaths are in this idiot's coverage area, and it's because weather jackasses like him think "predicting" the weather means telling people to grab a sweater on the weekend, not boring stuff like "take shelter or you'll die." No, it's way more fun to poke at your strap-on iPad and say, "man, that's a big tornado, just hang on and you'll all pull through." Idiot, idiot, idiot. Those idiot newscasters frickin' killed people.

The EF5/F6 that hit OKC in 1999? Total: 45 fatalities. With over 5,000 homes destroyed in OKC alone (not to mention Stroud, Shawnee, and every little city along I-40, even into Tulsa), with a 1 to 2 mile wide vortex that was on the ground for almost 150 miles, that hit 3 major interstates AT RUSH HOUR. Only 45 deaths. Less than 1/6 of what happened in Alabama and the southeast. Wanna know why? The weathercasters said (and I quote, because I was watching), "If you're above ground, you're going to die. Seek immediate shelter. Leave your cars..."

I am so mad I could spit.

58 To those of you who mentioned weather radios,etc, and why didn't people have them...the answer is they did. But an early morning storm system knock out weather towers for those radios as well as power to those communities. They were having to rely on regular radio and at the mercy of neighbors who could call ahead and say what wax coming. When it springs up over your community and you have no weather radio, little cell service due to damaged towers, and no power, there is NO way to imagine that the tornado is the size it was. Plus, multiple deaths occurred even where people were in their safe spots, lowest floor bathroom, even basements.

59

These tornadoes were forming as quickly as they dissipated. We were on the phone with my son in NE Georgia last night, just when we thought he was in the clear another formed. Thanks be to God he is ok (as was my family in Mississippi). Sometimes all you can do is pray, and we did plenty of that last night.

Joe Bastardi setting the global warmer climate change ninnies straight on Pompous O'Reilly.

If you can spare a few $, please give to the American Red Cross. Love you guys.

60 Lots of well-paid union firefighters would have cut the death toll in half.

61 Having trouble finding non-AL relief contact info, probably because the hammer hit AL hardest.  Regardless, please give what you can, where you can.

62 Having trouble finding non-AL relief contact info, probably because the hammer hit AL hardest.  Regardless, please give what you can, where you can.


There is stuff out there that dates back to the April 20th storms. I'm sure they're still active.

63 My son-in-law, a top notch builder, failed a deck inspection in Richmond VA because he didn't put a little galvanized plate on some place. The "Inspector" said that it was required because, otherwise, a tornado would lift the deck of the ground.

Looking at the pix and videos, a simple plate would have zero effect. 

64 I was 16 on April 3, 1974 and lived in Lexington, Kentucky. I grew up having nightmares about tornadoes and freaking out whenever the sky got dark. And I lived in a house with a lot of glass and no basement. We knew at daybreak there were going to be bad storms that day, and I was scared. I remember turning on the TV at about 3:00 p.m. and the Cincinnati station was showing live video of a big tornado going through the north side of town. I think that was the same one that flattened Xenia later. A little later one hit Louisville, and my brother lived there. It missed his neighborhood but tore up a couple of others, as well as a big park that had many 100-year-old oak trees just tossed over like toothpicks. At about 7:00 p.m. we lost power and I was terrified. My parents would not leave the house and I left them and went to my neighbor's and stayed the night in her basement. I was sure I was not going to see my parents again. We listened all night to the horrible radio reports. Another tornado hit very close to Eastern Kentucky University, where my sister was a student. I could not reach her on the phone. I spent about 18 hours in sheer terror. I could not sleep with the lights off for weeks afterward. Of course that was nothing compared to the people who actually lived through that day, but it has stuck with me all my life.

65 Looking at the pix and videos, a simple plate would have zero effect.

Yeah, but that was the kind of twister that levels anything that isn't a hardened structure, like a bunker or such.  It's not exactly representative of normal conditions (thank God).

66 It's all the fault of Chimpy McBushitler. He opened up the Gulfo de Me-hee-co to obscene multinational corporate profits via oil drilling, and look what Gaia hath wrought.

Payback's a bitch, even bigger than me.

67 HAARP strikes again.

68

you know what's the most fascinating & frightening thing about that picture? The path: looks like the twister came up from the bottom center of the picture (missing the little house on the lower right and the larger houe to the left of center),  came up the middle and made a right turn around the parking lot, then changed course, turned back and went out through the middle to the left.

not much else to be said... too much to be said...

 

69 I have a good friend who lives  in Cullman, AL. She posted an update from her phone last night, but nothing since then. If you're the praying type, please say a prayer for Bethany and her family.

70 @57 - Don't judge all the local weather guys by the one you saw.  Birmingham has some great meteorologists, one of which (James Spann) is perhaps the most trusted weather authority in the state. 

71 We were quite fortunate (just north of Atlanta), the storms tracked north and south of us, and we barely got any rain and only a bit of wind. My cousin in east central Alabama had one of the supercells track directly over his house, it caused only minor damage, but his home weather station recorded a 214 mph wind gust at the peak. The last of our family & friends finally checked in a couple of hours ago, lots of damage to houses and property, but everyone is alright. We were also fortunate to have superb coverage by the WSB-TV meteorologists, who stayed on the air for over five straight hours, with only very short breaks, detailing where every one of the dozens of storms were tracking, down to the individual streets involved. It was truly impressive. About the weather radios, a lot of folks have them, but last night the bigger problem was that there was no place to go if you were in the path of these storms, they were simply huge. The local news tonight had a bunch of people on who said they got the 2-minute warnings and saved themselves by hunkering down in their bathtubs, or in one case, a tanning bed. For reals.

72 Lauren, prayers said.

73 New age wackos will blame this on the towns folk for refusing eo ecept gaia as their true mother and leaving her offering and worshipping her and calling AL GORE the GRAND EXUALTED HIGH PRIEST

74

It's so sad, such loss and devastation on a grand scale, in seconds their lives have been turned upside down and changed forever.

Why are F4 and F5 tornadoes becoming commonplace, rare tornado outbreaks are now happening every few days and monster supercells and abnormal severe weather fronts are regularly popping up out of nowhere?  All this causes a lot of us to watch the interactive US weather maps daily and question too many "natural disasters" and the "worst ever" records being broken every few days.

Daily radar anomalies i.e. rings, concentric rings, pulsating beams, squares and lines can plainly be seen.  What are these radar anomalies that appear in, around storms and 24-48 hours before severe weather outbreaks spring out of nowhere?  Storms that normally weaken moving east are instead intensifying, it's certainly an interesting pattern.  Well worth observing and questioning whether there is an ongoing manmade influence or modification. 

 

75

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