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Bad
Ugly
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| Joplin, MO (AP Photo/Mike Schiefelbein) |
Friday, May 27, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
5ish observations about the tornadoes
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| Tuscaloosa, AL REUTERS/Marvin Gentry |
#2. When tragedies happen, whether they are snow storms, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes or tornadoes, normal things still happen. People still have babies and get kidney stones, even if the power is out and the hospital is running on generators. For some reason, this is hard to believe in the moment.
#3. God is amazing and works through His people. I have personally met 3 people from New York that have come to volunteer their time to help, but hear about others coming from all around the country. God had laid it on the heart of these particular people to come, help, and tell others about Him. I have read several stories on the Samaritan's Purses website of victims coming to know Jesus through this, which has been our prayer. Many that were in the path of the storm are telling their amazing stories and of their confidence in God's mercy through it. Jake wrote an interesting blog about this and his experience the first weekend helping tarp roofs and cut up trees, go read it here
#4. Bad things are very easy to forget about when they happen to other people. Today Abigail and I went to the toy store we usually visit to get presents for birthday parties. It is in Cahaba Heights, which had an EF2 tornado go through it Wednesday morning, April 27th. This store and the ones next to it were closed for a while as the awnings were blown off, I don't think anything more serious happened, but the neighborhood around it had a fair amount of damage. We walked out of the store and our view was of dead and dying trees, tarps on roofs, sawdust all over the streets, and debris all around. For some reason, it took me by surprise. Yes, we did just drive past it and we did just go to some of the hardest hit areas to deliver boxes of toys for children who lost their homes. But when you have a relatively normal shopping experience and you are surrounded by stuff and all things of this world (including a clothing boutique selling
Also, we have found that some people don't really want to hear about what happened. Well, they want to hear at first, but they don't want us saying a lot more about it. Either that, or they have a better story to tell us in the attitude of "that's nothing, listen to this." We can identify with this through experience, it is kind of a downer, isn't it? And of course, tragedy is not the only thing happening in the world, other people have lives of equally important goings on. We hope that this experience will teach us how to properly be on both ends of these conversations to be a witness to Christ and an encouragement to His people.
#5. It is interesting to see children react to tragedy and unusual circumstances. I believe with people helping children work through their thoughts and emotions, these experiences will often lead to growth. Most of the children I know are still too little to comprehend everything. As we have had the opportunity to go to several of the areas that were hit, I have enjoyed hearing what Abigail has had to say. At first, and I believe still, she didn't understand why we were looking, why this is such a big deal. Why are we taking video and pictures, why are we helping? Our challenge has been to try and answer these questions for someone who doesn't have the life experience we do!
The day of the storms, when we got our 'safe place' ready (as these terrible storms were predicted since the week before) her main priority was to get as many of her precious items in the little closet downstairs as she could talk me into. I managed to head most of them off, but this was definitely another fun adventure for her. Usually, we are the people who are upset that the weather reports are taking over our TV shows. We make fun of the weather guys and wish they would tell us the weather report faster and be done with it. But on wednesday we walked around all afternoon and evening with our battery radio, ears bent to hear of the news from around the state, shushing Abigail often so we could hear.
We lost power for two days, others near us for 5, and our friends in another part of the state for over a week. So Abigail and her friends know all about 'tricity' and how it is not always a given. Abigail's friend Jonathan still walks into stores and says with surprise, "They have power!" When I went to Tuscaloosa last week, we drove by some of the areas hit with the EF4 tornado that went through there and all the way up through Birmingham. Abigail had only seen the parts of town hit by smaller tornadoes and when we drove past these areas and she saw through the rain what had happened there, she said these things, among others, "Look at that damage. It's at my FAVORITE place! Awwwww! [burger king? what?]", "Wow that's a hundred trees damaged! AND houses! And people.", "Some houses are getting really old when they crashed down.", "Why did the bad tornado rip up people's homes?", "I've never seen this before! I only saw trees falling down the other times we saw damage." and "I'm really hungry, when are we going to eat?"
Often now when we drive by construction, old trees or old houses, Abigail thinks it was caused by the tornado. She's not alone, I found myself looking for days at the debris along the road, thinking, "I wonder if that is from the tornado or if it just fell of someone's truck." We hear lots of debris stories too, of clothing from the Old Navy in Tuscaloosa found in a yard in Birmingham (confirmed by the tags) and family photos and checks found in the next state. Jake found a piece of for sure debris while doing yardwork - a VHS called "14 Wealth Building Strategies You Can Use Today." Here is some interesting debris info from al.com:
"Government workers, private contractors and volunteers have cleared about 10 percent of the wreckage left by storms that pounded Alabama last month, officials said Thursday.
They now estimate the storms littered the state with 10 million cubic yards of debris -- a massive amount that would create a stack as big as a football field and standing a mile high, said Art Faulkner, the director of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency."
#6. With around 312 tornadoes in the states in the April 26-28th outbreak and 339 deaths, this storm has set several new records. We have learned a bit about the EF scale for rating tornadoes. It is based mostly on estimated wind speed, which is determined by the destruction it leaves behind. Alabama had every level of tornado in the state that day. To help you understand, here is the EF scale in pictures. This guide is on Our Amazing Planet and features pictures from all over the states. Note that as little as an EF1 tornado can flip a mobile home. People staying in their mobile homes has been attributed for many of the deaths in the northeast part of Alabama. Here is a ranking of the deadliest tornado outbreaks in the US from the National Weather Service. Note the years, the top 6 (besides this year) were before the modern tornado warning systems were developed. Please continue to pray for Alabamians and everyone else effected by these storms and flooding!
DEADLIEST US TORNADO OUTBREAKS:
RANK DATE(S) OUTBREAK NAME FATALITIES
1 3/18/1925 TRI-STATE TORNADO OUTBREAK 747+
2 4/4-5/1936 TUPELO-GAINESVILLE TORNADO OUTBREAK* 454
3 3/28/1920 PALM SUNDAY 1920 OUTBREAK* 380+
4 4/25-28/2011 SOUTHERN STATES OUTBREAK SEQUENCE* 339
5 3/21-22/1932 DEEP SOUTH OUTBREAK* 330+
6 4/23-25/1908 DIXIE OUTBREAK* 324
7 4/1-4/1974 SUPER OUTBREAK SEQUENCE* 319
8 5/27-28/1896 ST LOUIS/EAST ST LOUIS OUTBREAK 305
9 4/11-12/1965 PALM SUNDAY OUTBREAK 1965 256
10 6/7-9/1952 FLINT-WORCESTER OUTBREAK SEQUENCE 247
*INDICATES OUTBREAK AFFECTED ALABAMA.
NOTE: TORNADO FATALITY NUMBERS FOR 2011 ARE STILL PRELIMINARY.
taken from: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/?n=climo_2011torstats
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