Election Day 2002 Tornado in S...

The Alabama Governor’s Race was a hotly contested one between Democratic Incumbent Don Siegleman and Republican challenger Bob Riley.  As some residents of the Southeast Alabama town of Abbeville, Alabama watched election returns on this date in 2002, television coverage broke in with a tornado warning. 

The F2 tornado struck between 5:30 and 5:45 p.m, damaging one third of the buildings in the small Henry County town.  Thirty homes were destroyed.  About 20 people were injured and two people were killed.  The NWS Tallahassee issued a superb Tornado Warning at 5:23 p.m., specifically warning people in Abbeville.  Abbeville had been struck by a tornado less than two years earlier, in December 2000. 

The fatality spoiled the perfect record that Alabama had going in 2002.  It had been a very quiet year for tornadoes in the state of Alabama with only seven being reported during the first ten months of the year with no fatalities and amazingly no injuries. 

The Election Day tornado would be followed less than a week later by a major tornado outbreak.  Ten tornadoes caused widespread destruction, injuries and 11 fatalities across North Alabama.  

Springtime is the main season for tornadoes in Alabama, but there is a secondary tornado season in the fall that many people do not think about.  In 2002, the secondary tornado season of November and December in Alabama proved to be the most deadly, as it had for the previous two years also. 

The lucky streak came to an end as a well-warned tornado struck the Southeast Alabama town of Abbeville, killing two people.  An even larger tornado outbreak would hit the state just five days later when twelve people would die in Northwest Alabama in the Veteran’s Day Outbreak.   Carbon Hill and the Saragossa areas of Walker County were hard hit.