In April 2011 the storm season broke all records across
American states. By recreating a superstorm which struck
the South from eyewitness accounts, phone and email
records, as well as experts on the ground, Kim Cross allows
us to participate in the terror.
Meteorologists had warned Alabama in time for alert
citizens to take shelter from a half-mile wide storm. Just
a few days later they were even more concerned. Supercells
fed by heat and moisture were developing. Large hailstones
cracked windshields and rivers flooded. Weather broadcaster
Jason Simpson was so worried by the figures on his computer
screen that he was providing warnings from 4am of April
26th. Another broadcaster on the team, James Spann, was
relied upon by many, and he considered it urgent to start
delivering warnings of an unusual morning tornado too.
While Simpson was on the air, his family farm was hit by a
tornado.
With phone networks, weather monitoring equipment and
people on the ground incapacitated, the TV station still
had to keep warnings going out as the sun rose and pumped
more heat into the disastrous situation. Social media and
phone-holding spotters were able to provide instant
updates, and cell phones informed people whose power lines
were downed. I was fascinated by the account of Spann going
out to schools all year round, enlisting kids to report,
telling them where the safest room is and how to keep
informed about the weather rather than rely on sirens.
Storm chasers provide the other side of the story. I also
enjoyed the history of tornado and thunderstorm science.
We meet the people, many of them women, who were in shops,
offices and homes at 3pm as a major storm touched down in a
town. They headed home early, took precautions. But when
the wind is flinging bulldozers around, smashing homes,
banks and churches and ripping them off the ground, can
anyone do enough? The account is detailed and devastating.
By April 28th, 358 tornadoes had ripped through twenty-one
states in three days. 348 people had been killed and many
more injured.
While reading the accounts of the storm hitting I was
amazed by how strongly I felt the fear and bravery of the
people concerned. The second part of the book, dealing with
the aftermath, is also harrowing. The entire town of
Tuscaloosa is gone, only refrigerators and scattered debris
remaining. Hospitals and emergency responders struggle to
know who to treat first. FEMA trailers of supplies are
swept away. Heroism has already saved lives, and more lives
are risked to dig survivors out of wreckage. At the same
time I was astonished by incidentals, like a woman donning
flip-flops before driving to check on family, when she
really needed stout shoes. A much better prepared student
wears mountaineering boots. And more storms are coming.
As James Spann explains, the question we should ask is not
why storms occur but what we can learn from them. Lives are
saved by broadcast warnings and by a prepared populace. We
see trained dogs finding bodies in seconds; we see social
media providing information and volunteers pouring in to
help, including mass cooking. A social site page acts as a
lost and found column for storm-tossed belongings. WHAT
STANDS IN A STORM, we are shown by Kim Cross, who lives in
Birmingham, Alabama and teaches journalism, is the
community. At times heart-rending, the gripping, well-
written account is a must-read.
Immersive reporting and dramatic storytelling set you right in the middle of
the horrific superstorm of April 2011, a weather event that killed 348 people.
April 27, 2011, marked the climax of a superstorm that saw a record 358
tornadoes rip through twenty-one states in three days, seven hours, and
eighteen minutes. It was the deadliest day of the biggest tornado outbreak in
recorded history, which saw 348 people killed, entire neighborhoods erased, and
$11 billion in damage. The biggest of the tornadoes left scars across the land
so wide they could be seen from space. But from the terrible destruction
emerged everyday heroes, neighbors and strangers who rescued each other from
hell on earth.
With powerful emotion and gripping detail, Cross weaves together the heart-
wrenching stories of several characters—including three college students, a
celebrity weatherman, and a team of hard-hit rescuers—to create a nail-biting
chronicle in the Tornado Alley of America. No, it’s not Oklahoma or Kansas;
it’s Alabama, where there are more tornado fatalities than anywhere in the US,
where the trees and hills obscure the storms until they’re bearing down upon
you. For some, it’s a story of survival, and for others it’s the story of their
last hours.
Cross’s immersive reporting and dramatic storytelling sets you right in the
middle of the very worst hit areas of Alabama, where thousands of ordinary
people witnessed the sky falling around them. Yet from the disaster comes a
redemptive message that’s just as real: In times of trouble, the things that
tear our world apart also reveal what holds us together.
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