Five years ago today, on November 24, 2001, I clearly remember asking my oldest son, J.P., (who was in high school at the time) if he would come in and help me in the weather office at ABC 33/40 since we were expecting some severe weather, and I was short-staffed. As I recall, I told him we might have one or two tornado warnings, but I didn’t think it was going to be a long, drawn-out outbreak. Well, you know the line; when it comes to thunderstorms, expect the unexpected. J.P. had more work that he bargained for, working our Pinpoint Doppler Radar system for me for hours while I was on the air with our wall to wall weather coverage. He did a great job, and I almost cried when he had to leave for his job that afternoon at WJOX radio. By then we had pulled John Oldshue back into the station and he was there for radar duty. I am very thankful we now have four meteorologists here in the office (we only had three back then, and one was out of town on vacation).
As I remember the first tornado warning was issued around 10:00 that Saturday morning, and it was pretty much non-stop for the next 8 hours. When the day was over, a total of 34 tornadoes touched down across our state, killing four people and injuring many more. Two deaths came in the West Alabama community of Kennedy in Lamar County; a mother and daughter died in the destruction of their home. The other two fatalities came in Cherokee County in Northeast Alabama; a mother and her son were killed in the community of Sand Rock when their mobile home was ripped apart and blown into a nearby pond. The pond was drained to recover the bodies.
In the Birmingham metro area, a tornado touched down near Trussville, and moved up I-59 toward Argo producing significant damage to a number of homes, some businesses, and a church. While none of the tornadoes on November 24, 2001 were strong/violent (F4-F5), that was the largest number of tornadoes in a single day in Alabama history, even more than the 1974 Superoutbreak.
Just another reminder that the fall tornado season can really mean business…
