re: Today is the ninth anniversary of the beginning of the 2011 Super Outbreak

As luck would have it, my family embarked that morning from Pensacola on our way to Coleman State Park, just north of Iuka, MS, with a stop in Prattville, AL for lunch.

How we arrived in one piece still amazes me to this day. And never again have I travelled without a careful check of the weather forecast along my route.

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drove thru that area a week or so after it happened, Hackleburg, Phil Campbell, etc. It was look like something off a Red Cross commercial. Like a war zone where bombs had gone off. The National Guard had a command tent with huge antennas and shut in the center of town. I've never seen anything like that.

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That tornado continued for quite a ways. I was working second shift in Decatur at the time. We were standing on our dock/outside break area and watched that storm cross the Tennessee river. By that time, it had wrecked Hackleburg and Phil Campbell, and continued on to do major damage in eastern Lawrence County, the town of Langtown. It killed a coworker's mom and uncle and trapped his wife and daughter in the rubble of their house. When it crossed the TN river, it had the strangest cloud formation I have ever seen. We couldn't see the tornado, but the entire storm seemed to be only feet above the river and everything was rotating. It crossed the river, and took out the high tension powerlines off Nuclear Plant Rd. I had friends in that area who lost their homes, and a family member who died.