Does this look like insufficient damage to you? An F4 tornado hit Birmingham, AL in April, leaving miles upon miles of destruction like this. Yet for some reason, they received a letter stating that they were ineligible for FEMA assistance.
Birmingham, AL Tornado Damage
According to the letter they received from FEMA, the house that the family lost in the deadly April 27 twister was “not unsafe to live in.”
Sadly, it is believed that numerous families may have been rejected FEMA grants as well for the same reason. Their neighborhood?
Some people believe that it’s just a paperwork error and that FEMA will correctly distribute the money to the victims, but as of now that is just optimistic speculation.
300+ people have been killed as a result of the tornado outbreak. Many of them were found dead in their basements even though that’s where they were instructed to go for safety. That alone should indicate the sheer power of this tornado. In some cases people had over 20 minutes advanced warning, but it just wasn’t possible to survive a direct hit from the tornado. I really don’t know what to think of this, other than our warning system being a complete failure when it matters the most.
As you can see, this one tornado alone (believed to be F4 or F5) completely leveled miles upon miles of forest, houses and buildings. Just looking at the destruction, you can only wonder how anyone could survive that. Looks like a nuclear bomb went off. Very sad.
I don’t know if the person recording this video is brave or stupid, but nevertheless the video he has captured of the F4 tornado in Tuscaloosa, AL, is absolutely incredible.
You may want to watch this full-screened:
Things really get interesting after the 3 minute mark. Props to jason835a for having the courage to film this monster!
The same tornado in the video is still on the ground now in North Carolina, having traveled through four states! Someone rightfully pointed out however that there are other tornadoes being somewhat ignored just because this one has been doing so much damage to heavily populated areas.
Check out all of concurrent tornado warnings in Tennessee & Western North Carolina for example:
Pretty surreal footage right now coming out of Birmingham, AL, right now of what is believed to be a 1-mile wide F4 or F5 tornado:
Birmingham, AL Tornado April 2011
The same Tornado that hit Birmingham, AL, struck Tuscaloosa, AL, earlier. You can find a video of the coverage for the Tuscaloosa, AL Tornado here. A quote describing the damage in Tuscaloosa:
EF4-5 type stuff in Tuscaloosa, looks like a 5000 pound bomb went out, complete buildings just missing, Krispy Kream, Casa Taco, etc…
Tuscaloosa, AL Tornado April 2011
I’m sure there will be quite a bit of content hitting the internet over the next few hours. I think at the moment, most of it’s being sent out over the news on TV.
Edit:
More videos from Tuscaloosa:
Tuscaloosa, AL Damage Video:
And in Birmingham, AL:
Birmingham, AL Tornado Damage 2011
The Tornado has been on the ground for over three hours now, and has crossed through three states so far.
