Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire HUGE Tornado in Birmingham

Been watching the storms on the News over here and my heart goes out to the South....

Not been able to post of late due to PC problems, but have been thinking of all the folks affected, and I hope those that need it get all the help possible..

Poor Bama got slammed. The Natl. WX service office, for this region is in Huntsville. They lost power to their doppler radar site in Jackson Co. AL. just across the state line from Franklin Co. TN. I'ld of thought that the radar site would of had a Diesel gen. for a backup power source. I believe the death toll in this state was five. I was up in N'ville today, i noticed electric co. service trucks heading South on I-65, probably towards the Bham area.

Here are a couple of pictures snapped from an office building in Birmingham. Amazing and scary! Best wishes to all.

Folks,

In no way is this meant to be disrespectful, but why, when an area is known for tornado's, are so many residential buildings made from wood???

The media here is showing streets which have been basically turned to match sticks...Surely brick or concrete block structures would fair better? I can still imagine them needing to re roof, but I would think the basic structure would survive?

Regards,

Peter

Taken from the Regions Bank building looking up 19th?

Peter, nothing hit directly by that could survive. I levels brick buildings. You couldn't afford to build a building to withstand that for normal business or living.

I don't know the building name, but it is at 1901 6th Ave. North.

Got word this evening one of my daughters in law lost her brother and his wife in Arkansas. The found them in the remains of their home.

Regions-Harbert Plaza

It hit all over N.AL. Sand Mtn. towns and counties bordering TN. also. The Huntsville TV station was showing pictures of AL. residents coming into TN. to buy gas and other items.

Pete,

There's a brick home about five miles from me that was leveled, they go maybe a half second longer than a wood home in a tornado. Concrete block structures get leveled also but they'll last longer than wood or brick, the disadvantage is that in our heat and humidity they sweat making them uncomfortable and hard to heat/cool, plus they're unattractive. We don't have much stone in the south so that's out as a building material, plus it has the same disadvantages much like your old castles in the UK, damp, cold and hard to heat.

What a lot of people around me have are storm pits, hardened shelters dug in to the ground. The water table's high here so not many have basements. I'm in a rural area and I'd say more homes than not have storm pits outside. I spent many a summer afternoon in my youth sitting in our storm pit, my mother wasn't much for storms. Most of your newer built suburban subdivisions aren't going to have storm pits, no place to put them and they're too expensive to build. Suburbs with their cookie cutter frame homes are ripe to be leveled by a tornado.

.280 Rem is correct.

[b][color:#3333FF]Hurricanes,[/color][/b] which I'm sure you're familiar with, top out at Cat 5 with sustained winds at or above 250 km/hr. You've seen the destruction that a Cat 5 hurricane can lay down.

These [color:#3333FF][b]tornado winds[/b][/color] , very focused when compared to a hurricane, are in the F3-F5 class of tornado range. They have winds ranging from 254km/hr to over 500 km/hr.

In [b][color:#3333FF]1999 in Moore, OK[/color][/b] an F5 touched down and tore up alot of the town, 36 people were killed. This storm had estimated top end wind speeds between 452 and 517 km/hr according to doppler radar.

They're BAD DUDES and not many structures that are built on a reasonable amount of $$$ will make it once hit.

Anyone on the 24hcf hit by this storm?

Bush must somehow be at fault.

If it's poured concrete & rebar maybe. But if you get in the 200 mph and up range a residential structure, from what I've seen, has no chance. I would consider it Divine Intervention if a basic block and brick structure made it thru a direct hit by this type storm.

anyone have any links to provide relief?

I know we've got some stuff laying around we need to get rid of, including a bit of cash and some prayers.

feel for those folks down there

will say I'm very glad to hear our Mickey is okay, tks for updating us on that Lynn, tis appreciated.

I don't have direct links for relief but later today as work permits I will call 4 churches I know of in the area to see if they are actively working on disaster relief. For those that are I will give the correct information for those who would like to donate. From experience working after the 1998 F5 in this area I can tell you that simple things like water and ready to eat food were never turned down by the victims.

Omg cnn reports more than 300 killed.

tks shootem

perhaps a new thread so that info when ascertained doesn't get buried in this thread.

always amazed me the power of multiplication, figure if 2000 or 20000 send a couple of cases of bottled water and couple of cases of RTE food, you can make a dent in hard times.

our nation is populated by a generous people

She was found, right after they found her dog, both dead...about 200 yards from where the closet used to be that she'd been huddled in with her Labrador Retriever.