The Hurricane Creek Bridge

On April 28th, along with thousands of other Alabamians, I hungrily devoured Bill Castle’s aerial footage of shot along the path of the Tuscaloosa – Birmingham Tornado. As he flew northeast of Tuscaloosa, I noticed what appeared to be a huge railroad trestle that was destroyed as if it had been a HO-Scale model bridge on a toy train layout, smashed by a petulant child. I had never seen the bridge, so I didn’t know what had really happened until today.

Kevin Laws, of the National Weather Service Birmingham, forwarded me a riveting YouTube video produced by Holt resident John Wathen. The Hurricane Creek Bridge was the tallest and oldest man-riveted bridge in the country. The EF4 tornado had crumpled it completely, collapsing the span into the water.

Equally devastating, it will be generations before the thousands of trees along the beautiful waterway grow to the same beauty that paddlers on the creek have enjoyed for decades and decades.

Two amazing things: John Wathen says in the video that huge railroad ties from the rail line were blown one mile by the massive tornado. And…railroad spike were lofted and deposited in his yard, buried to the heads.

Category: Alabama's Weather, Severe Weather