Here's what's left of a bad mansard apartment? Office building? John's second cousin Jessica H. took these photos in her town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. John has a large extended family in Alabama and fortunately they are all ok. Having grown up in St. Louis, I am quite used to tornado sirens. Seems like they go off all the time now, perhaps due to tornadic (is that a word?) in adjacent counties.
Sometimes I am a bit nonchalant about getting down to the basement when the sirens start howling, and then talking. They do that now- talk- like the teacher in Charlie Brown. Scenes like this and our own Good Friday Tornado and the Tornado of 1896 are a reminder to me that I should get myself into the basement.
Our first house in Lafayette Square didn't have a 3rd floor. Its 3rd floor was ripped off in the 1896 tornado. The roof and then bricks were peeled from the masonry home and went flying, likely into windows and people. That brick cyclone must have been horrifying and terribly dangerous.
Lesson- get in the damn basement.
