BIRMINGHAM and HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The National Weather Service (NWS) has launched a website to commemorate the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak across Alabama. The page tracks the storms through the course of the day with meteorological data, describes each tornado event of the day, presents survivor stories and offers a place for others to post theirs, and shares a memorial listing the names of those who died in the storms, including Lloyd Winford Harris of Cullman and Keenan Jonathan Sullivan of Johnson’s Crossing.
On Friday, the agency issued this statement:
“Tuesday, April 27th, 2021 will mark the 10-year anniversary of the historic severe weather outbreak that devastated portions of the Southeast United States and rewrote the record books in the state of Alabama. In a single day, 240 Alabamians across 19 counties in central and northern Alabama lost their lives and over 1000 more were injured. All total, 62 tornadoes swept across Alabama that day with 11 tornadoes of EF-4 intensity or greater. The three EF-5 tornadoes that struck the state were the most experienced in a single day in Alabama since the Super Outbreak of April 3, 1974, and the first EF-5 observed in the state since April 8, 1998.
“The April 27 tornado outbreak was the second deadliest ever in the state and the fifth deadliest ever recorded in the U.S. It was also the costliest natural disaster in Alabama history. To put the extent of the damage into perspective, well over 1,000 miles of tornado tracks were observed in Alabama on April 27 with over half of the state’s 67 counties experiencing tornado damage. In fact, every county in the northern one-third of the state except for two, Colbert and Lamar, had at least one tornado track on that day.
“As we approach the 10-year anniversary, and reflect back on that day, the National Weather Service will be unveiling a special webpage commemorating the historic outbreak. This page will include a dedication to those that lost their lives that day, an extended section with firsthand survivor accounts, interviews and videos, and expanded meteorological information, photos and track maps.”
The NWS website can be viewed at https://04272011-noaa.hub.arcgis.com.
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