Archive for the 'Southern Storms' Category

Early Bird Special: While being interviewed about the tornado that took her home, Tuscaloosa resident Judy Pugh was surprised to see one of her three cats, missing since the storm, suddenly show up from out of nowhere.

[cbs42 / thanks kristen!]

Heartwarming Tearjerker of the Day: Mason’s family had all but given up on him after a tornado that ripped through Birmingham, AL, on April 27th picked up the terrier mix, who was hiding in the garage, and carried him away. But on Monday, when the family returned to their home to inspect the damage, they found Mason sitting on the front porch.

“He’s got 2 broken legs and they’re distal radial ulnal fractures, they’ve not been able to be in alignment so neither one of them have healed so he had to crawl on 2 broken legs to get home,” Birmingham-Jefferson Co. Animal Control Shelter staff veterinarian Dr. Barbara Benhart told Fox 6 News.

Mason will undergo an operation this Friday to realign his bones. Doctors expect his recovery to take a while, but compared to the ordeal he’s endured, getting better should be a cake walk.

[myfoxal / thanks meg!]

Damn Nature What The Hell of the Day: Two weeks after a devastating series of storms left a large swath of the south in ruins, a dramatic video of the infamous Tuscaloosa tornado has suddenly gone viral.

The footage was shot from a house that barely escaped a direct hit by the twister. Things get too close for comfort around 0:45.

[rawstory.]

Winning The War On Nature of the Day: It came to light this morning that The New York Times stopped the presses Hollywood-style to bump coverage of the devastating southern storms in favor of Osama bin Laden’s death.

While that’s understandable, it’s nice to know there’s at least one concerned citizen with the means to assist the affected states who has his unfazed eye trained squarely on relief efforts.

That man? Charlie Sheen.

[@nickbilton / thanks kim!]

Tornado Outbreak Update: As the fatality count from yesterday’s record-breaking tornado outbreak continues to rise — nearly 200 as of 10AM, with 128 in Alabama alone — attention turns to the devastation left in the wake of 155 reported twisters (to compare, the average number of tornadoes for the entire month of April is 163).

Entire blocks leveled, and hundreds of thousands without power. “I don’t know how anyone survived,” Mayor Walter Maddox of hard-hit Tuscaloosa told CNN.

As the storm cell moves east and up the seaboard, The National Weather Service has issued tornado warnings in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Additional storm footage below:

Storm chaser footage shot from the north side of Philadelphia, MS.

Double tornado spotted in Cullman, Alabama.

[nyt / cnn / myfoxal / abc3340 / jason835a / mediaite / thanks paul!]