that changed Huntsville (as well as my life) in a matter of 4-5 minutes on Nov. 15, 1989.
I’ve posted that story here so many times over the years so I won’t repeat all of it.
I somehow was allowed to survive it while my first wife and mother of our three children was lying at home in a coma, under hospice and family care, dying of brain cancer.
She passed away the next day, Nov. 16, 1988 almost 24 hours to the minute I knew I had survived it. If I had not survived it our 3 children would have been orphans at ages 18, 12, and 10.
Today they are 52, 46, and 44 and are doing well and making me proud. They have raised 5 grandchildren and in just 3 months I will see my first great grandchild.
I know how lucky I am. But every year, on these two anniversary dates….the tornado on Nov. 15 and my wife’s death on the 16th, I have cause to sit and review my life, those 2 days, and having gotten to where we are today.
On the tornado itself….for those of you who don’t know…
Ultimately, the toll read this way: 21 dead, 463 injured and $100 million in damage.
The storm, an F4 tornado, had such power that it was more than a half-mile wide. At its peak, the tornado's winds ranged from 207 mph to 260 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
The destruction stretched for miles, from the K-9 range to Jones Valley, then to the western slope of Huntsville Mountain and on to eastern Madison County.
At the intersection of Airport Road and Whitesburg Drive, site of some of the heaviest damage, Dr. Elliott Marcus was turning left when the tornado hit.
Turning onto Carl T. Jones Drive, he looked to his left and saw what he thought was a big black curtain.
Realizing it was a tornado, he parked his Mercury on Carl T. Jones Drive. Just before the tornado hit, he remembered thinking that he was about to die.
But he did not die. The tornado lifted his car and hurled it about 150 feet, onto its side and into a tangle of power lines.
With his left arm hurting, Marcus walked down the hill and toward a police officer, who directed him to a woman in a Jeep Cherokee. Marcus did not know the woman in the Jeep Cherokee, but she took him to the emergency room at Huntsville Hospital.
Before his left forearm was amputated, Marcus told the emergency-room workers about the devastation on Airport Road.
"I was the first one (tornado victim) there at the hospital," Marcus said. "I said, 'You're going to hear about it.' I told them to get ready because there were going to be many more people."
He was my mother-in-law’s doctor. She was the last patient he had seen that day. So many crazy co-incidences that afternoon…
One more thing for the Bourbon guys here…in 1989 there was an ABC store in the Westbury Mall that was completely destroyed on Airport Road. It was destroyed along with every bottle in it. For the next 2 days you could smell Bourbon and Whiskey from three quarters of a mile away…
People tend to think March and April are the really dangerous tornado months here….and they probably are, numerically…
But for those living around here now….do not sleep on the danger or the historical record or huge, deadly tornados in north Alabama in November and December.
This evening I’ve been watching some videos of the Airport Road tornado….and I’ll put flowers on my first wife’s grave again on November 16th, the 34th anniversary of her death, tomorrow.
She was only 46….much too young…
I’ve posted that story here so many times over the years so I won’t repeat all of it.
I somehow was allowed to survive it while my first wife and mother of our three children was lying at home in a coma, under hospice and family care, dying of brain cancer.
She passed away the next day, Nov. 16, 1988 almost 24 hours to the minute I knew I had survived it. If I had not survived it our 3 children would have been orphans at ages 18, 12, and 10.
Today they are 52, 46, and 44 and are doing well and making me proud. They have raised 5 grandchildren and in just 3 months I will see my first great grandchild.
I know how lucky I am. But every year, on these two anniversary dates….the tornado on Nov. 15 and my wife’s death on the 16th, I have cause to sit and review my life, those 2 days, and having gotten to where we are today.
On the tornado itself….for those of you who don’t know…
Ultimately, the toll read this way: 21 dead, 463 injured and $100 million in damage.
The storm, an F4 tornado, had such power that it was more than a half-mile wide. At its peak, the tornado's winds ranged from 207 mph to 260 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
The destruction stretched for miles, from the K-9 range to Jones Valley, then to the western slope of Huntsville Mountain and on to eastern Madison County.
At the intersection of Airport Road and Whitesburg Drive, site of some of the heaviest damage, Dr. Elliott Marcus was turning left when the tornado hit.
Turning onto Carl T. Jones Drive, he looked to his left and saw what he thought was a big black curtain.
Realizing it was a tornado, he parked his Mercury on Carl T. Jones Drive. Just before the tornado hit, he remembered thinking that he was about to die.
But he did not die. The tornado lifted his car and hurled it about 150 feet, onto its side and into a tangle of power lines.
With his left arm hurting, Marcus walked down the hill and toward a police officer, who directed him to a woman in a Jeep Cherokee. Marcus did not know the woman in the Jeep Cherokee, but she took him to the emergency room at Huntsville Hospital.
Before his left forearm was amputated, Marcus told the emergency-room workers about the devastation on Airport Road.
"I was the first one (tornado victim) there at the hospital," Marcus said. "I said, 'You're going to hear about it.' I told them to get ready because there were going to be many more people."
He was my mother-in-law’s doctor. She was the last patient he had seen that day. So many crazy co-incidences that afternoon…
One more thing for the Bourbon guys here…in 1989 there was an ABC store in the Westbury Mall that was completely destroyed on Airport Road. It was destroyed along with every bottle in it. For the next 2 days you could smell Bourbon and Whiskey from three quarters of a mile away…
People tend to think March and April are the really dangerous tornado months here….and they probably are, numerically…
But for those living around here now….do not sleep on the danger or the historical record or huge, deadly tornados in north Alabama in November and December.
This evening I’ve been watching some videos of the Airport Road tornado….and I’ll put flowers on my first wife’s grave again on November 16th, the 34th anniversary of her death, tomorrow.
She was only 46….much too young…
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