Nine Years Ago

This Sunday will mark the 9th anniversary of the horrible F5 tornado that tore through a number communities just west of Birmingham, including Oak Grove, Rock Creek, Sylvan Springs, Edgewater, Pratt City, and McDonald Chapel. A total of 32 people died in Jefferson County from that storm on April 8, 1998. The same parent thunderstorm dropped a smaller tornado to the east, killing two more people in the community of Wattsville in St. Clair County.

That night was the defining moment of my career.

ABC 33/40 at the time was the only station in this market offering aggressive, long form severe weather coverage, and our station was a lifeline for the community that night. I will never forget John Oldshue pulling into Edgewater in the old StormLink van; he was on the scene within three minutes. His reports of the damage were chilling; but we really didn’t know until the next morning the extent of the disaster. That was when we flew our helicopter, AirLink 33/40, over the long damage path, at the first light of day. You could hear jaws dropping all over Alabama and the world when we picked up the damage path on live TV at the old Oak Grove School, which was wiped out by the killer tornado. The tornado track was 30 miles long, and at it’s widest point was one-half mile wide. The F5 intensity was reached in the Rock Creek/McDonald Chapel area.

Perhaps the most difficult scene was the funeral of the last person to die from the tornado, Nathan Seals. Nathan was an 8 year old student at North Highland Elementary School in Hueytown; he held on to life for two weeks at the Children’s Hospital of Alabama before he died of serious head injuries. Nathan’s father, Matthew Seals, has become a close personal friend, and I know this is a very difficult time for Matthew and his family. You can read Matthew’s story on his web site; I encourage you to spend some time and read more about his experience. Let it be motivation for you to develop a tornado safety plan for your family. Another strong/violent will strike this part of Alabama, we hope it is many years from now, but it might be next week. We simply don’t know, but we have to be ready.

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