It was exactly five years ago that my area was decimated by tornadoes. I called this the longest day for various reasons. My area is no strangers to tornadoes. In fact, we are sometimes a tornado hot spot as we are located in Dixie Alley. But nothing could have prepared us for what would occur on April 27th 2011.
A week before April 27th my area’s forecasters kept talking about a significant storm system coming in around the 26th-29th. I looked at my own weather models that I have and they were going off the charts in developing this system. My area had already had tornadoes in 2011. We had tornadoes on February 28th 2011, and again on April the 4th 2011. But the models were developing this system. As the days got closer it became obvious this was going to be a very bad situation. On April the 25th our forecasters used the word super outbreak potentially. I will never forget what one of our local stations meteorologist said, “for those of you that were not alive for the Super Outbreak of April 3rd 1974 your about to live it now”. April 3rd 1974 was very bad in my area it was a decade before my time. But my parents survived that and I read a lot about it when I was younger. In the 1974 outbreak my area didn’t get just one tornado but a bunch of them at one time. Lots of the storms that formed in 1974 produced multiple tornadoes often times very intense.
My area had numerous tornado outbreaks before. Tornado outbreaks my area had been hit hard with include: 1994 Palm Sunday outbreak, April 1994 tornado outbreak, May 1995 tornado and severe weather outbreak, Easter 1997 severe weather & tornado outbreak, Nashville tornado outbreak of 1998, May 7th 1998 severe weather outbreak, Veterans Day 2002 tornado outbreak, Super Tuesday 2008 outbreak, April 2009 outbreak, October 26th 2010 tornado outbreak, and April 4th 2011 severe weather tornado outbreak. Yet our forecasters said this would be worse than these tornado outbreaks.
On April 26th 2011, I checked my models and what they were showing was not good. My parents asked me what my models were showing. I said “this is going to be very bad its probably going to be a total disaster tomorrow will be the longest day for sure” The set up was to good to not have multiple tornadoes. Warm humid air was in place, a strong cold front in the atmosphere, very high levels of wind shear, a powerful storm system, and very rich moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. The data on all of these things was going off the charts. April 27th came and the air was just not right when I woke up. The air seemed like it already wanted to suck one up. I looked to the sky and thought this is going to be the longest day for our area for sure.
It didn’t take long for the storms to get cranking. Shortly before lunch hour the first tornadoes touched down in my area. These tornadoes were rated EF2’s. Oh, but things were about to get worse a lot worse. A few hours later the second wave of tornadoes hit. The next wave had more intense tornadoes. My parents and friends that were alive in the Super Outbreak 1974 called these types of storms “cluster tornadoes” because you had storms producing multiple tornadoes at once that seemed like they were in clusters. That is pretty much what happened. The tornadoes started to touch down left and right it seemed. The sky would turn black and after they moved out of the area the sun would come back out. These tornadoes had a lot of ratings ranging from Ef0-EF3. Around, early evening another wave of tornadoes would hit my area a lot of these tornadoes were EF2 and EF3 tornadoes. These did a lot of damage to many cities in my area of Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia. But oh how we were not done.
Around evening my dad had made it home from his job. So we were thanking God that all of us had were home safe. We had a police scanner going so we could hear reports. Finally what we heard next would send chills done all of our spines. A tornado had touched down in North Georgia just a county below us. The reports were this tornado was going to move into our county. Now we were all starting to get nervous. Other counties had already been decimated with tornadoes. My particular county had already seen 5 tornadoes already but they had pretty much been in other parts of the county. Then we got a report on the scanner that the tornado that was about to move into my part of my county had left nothing but the foundation in homes it had hit. That gave us all goose bumps. I told my parents “there is only one type of tornado that does that kind of damage. I stated we are dealing with an EF4 or an EF5 type tornado”. Suddenly after I said that the lights went out, the thunder roared and the lightning lit up the whole sky. But the wind started to really howl. My wind instrument on my weather station said the wind guested up to 83 mph. We could hear popping and cracking outside. The tornado was getting close. So we all ran in the basement.
We all joined hands and we prayed to God “Lord these storms just happen and we can’t control the weather but you can. We just pray that this tornado curves before it hits our house. But if its meant for us to start over please let us all survive in Jesus name we pray amen” After we finished praying we all heard the train sound it was getting very close. Our basement is partially underground so we figured we would be safe, but on one side we were far away from there was a tiny window. We could see a little bit what was going on outside but we were also far away back that if glass blew in it could not get us. The train sound was still there, but I got a glimpse of the destructive tornado. Then the tornado at the last moment curved before it hit our house. We got out of the basement and checked on things and our house had been spared. Nightfall came, and we would have to take cover again as the last wave of tornadoes would come through. Finally after 11:00 PM it was all over the storm system moved out of our area. Now the next day we could see the damage the tornado that about got us had done. Had the tornado hit my house it would have been the 4th time my house had been hit with a tornado. The original house was wiped out in 1974. It was rebuilt, on May 7th 1998 our house was hit with a tornado ( I was in this one). Thankfully it just tore siding off but we lost a lot of trees, and August 2nd 2004 my house was hit again with a tornado it though was an F0 so we just lost a lot off trees.
The next day it was clean up day. Even though our house was spared from that destructive tornado. It dumped a lot of debris in our yard. We had parts of trees that we didn’t even have at my home, we also found other stuff that didn’t belong to us. We also had to eventually replace all of our garden and flowers as the storms’ hailstones broke all the plants. But more importantly we survived and our house was spared. Later we decided we would take a drive to some of the areas. We drove down the road and we were shocked in horror. All the houses and farms that were there before the longest day were gone. Nothing left but foundations. We then realized how lucky we were that the tornado curved at the last second before getting our house. We gave praise to Jesus our lord and Savior, but we prayed for those that lost everything.
In Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia The Weather Service said over 60 tornadoes had touched down in our area. A lot of them were strong tornadoes EF2′ and EF3. The tornado that just about got me and wiped everything out down the road was rated an EF4 with 190 mph winds. 7 tornadoes were confirmed to have touched down in my county alone. Sadly though we had a lot of people get killed on April 27th 2011. April 27th would later be dubbed Super Outbreak II. Oddly, it took the exact same path as the April 3rd 1974 tornado outbreak. The states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky were in ruins. It was heartbreaking to see all the destruction.
Since the longest day we have had more tornado outbreaks. 11 months later our area was hit hard again with the March 2nd 2012 tornado outbreak. 3 years later on April 28th 2014 we were hit hard again with another tornado outbreak. This one took the same path as the Super Outbreak II. However, these tornado outbreaks were typically the kind of outbreaks my area gets. Even though these type of outbreaks is what we get and even though they were bad. They were nothing compared to the Super Outbreak of 2011. That was a horrible day for my area and as I call it. I don’t think anyone would forget the longest day.
As I stated my area has a long history of tornadoes and we have had numerous outbreaks in our area. So my area is tornado prone. But what made the Super outbreaks of 1974 and 2011 so bad was you had very intense tornadoes and cluster type tornadoes as we call them. Often times going over the same area. So, this year marks the 5th anniversary of the Super Outbreak II.
tornadocam 