Footage of the April 27, 2011 tornado that moved through Fultondale, Alabama just north of Birmingham. Filmed from the balcony of my 3rd floor apartment off I-65.
For some reason I remember this video being in higher quality... You could really see the trees across the parking lot being pulled down by the tornado, and in this they're all fuzzy. Weird. Dude if you can reupload this at a higher quality, it's great stuff.
This particular tornado appears to have just skirted by the actual complex. It seems his location was on the outer fringes of the circulation, undoubtedly saving him from further complication.
yeah he was about 100 yards away from the field that used to be a forest but i think the biggest wind factor is he was on the north side of the tornado. Most of the large damaging tornado vids i've seen you have rear flank downdraft and another very powerful inflow jet feeding into the tornado from the south, and the tornado itself can completely pass by a structure to the north but when these inflow jets come in behind it they can level a well built frame house in the more powerful tornadoes. i think the damage swath is less of a straight defined path and takes on more of a , comma shape or a 9 at any given time
Ever since I was caught in the 74 Outbreak I've been fascinated with Tornados, and I've seen hundreds of hours of Tornado footage, and I'll admit that this footage has to be on my top three easy! This was amazing footage, thank you!
WOW!!! Awesome footage, and I'm glad you and your family are ok. My stepdaughter lived in the first set of apartments off I-65 at the Fultondale exit. Her building was condemned so she had to move, and she lost her car to the debris. I know this was very scary for all of you, and your footage shows just how dark and menacing something like this is. My daughter used to live in those same apartments -- I'm so glad she moved away. Thanks for sharing this incredible footage.
You guys were part of some kind of miracle. Tornadoes are funny. For some reason, it just wasn't organized enough, right at the moment it struck your apartment complex. We've all seen them level buildings as big, or bigger and even stronger, than what you live in. Glad you guys were OK. Great footage. Thanks for posting it.
Looked like more of an inflow jet to me than the tornado. Tornado probably passed couple hundred yards away. Still a very dangerous position to be in, means you are too close to the tornado
I live in that apartment building where it shows it first coming over. Thank God me & my baby girl evacuated before it hit, I would have been terrified. Thanks for ur bravery in filming!!
I have to say, this is one of the best 'up close' tornado footage I've ever seen! At first I thought this might be a hoax vid when the camera panned to the tv at the beginning, but when the cameraman looks outside and sees it coming, you know it's for real. Excellent clip guys!
4/27/11 was no doubt the worst day of my life. Our weather radio woke us up at 4:00 in the morning so we turn on the news and there is a tornado over us. And that happened the rest of the day until sun down. And phones were down. Cell phones, Internet. There was no way of getting in touch with loved ones so you had no idea who was alive or not. I will never forget that day! Still makes me so scared to think about it
WOW... I was LITERALLY about 75 yds away from you in this vid... I was trying to explain to everyone how close, the same tornado that hit ttown, got close to me without visuals... I ran in the house when I saw the cloud flowing in opposite directions 😬
Yup. It widened to a massive 1.5 miles, but the wind speed also decreased as a result. Maybe a few isolated spots of EF4 damage, but mostly EF2 & EF3 in this area.
Was born in Fultondale Alabama. Moved when I was 7 years old in 1963. Our houses roof was ripped off in the 2011 tornado. Fultondale Estates is the neighborhood. Shout out Chris Parks and Smokey and the guys. 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
My friend , I ve always heard close only counts in horseshoes and handgarnades. I think after seeing this , it counts in tornadoes too. If it had tracked over your Apts and parking lot full of cars ,well we prob wouldn't be looking at this video. Glad your ok.
Looking back, it is incredible to see when tornadoes ramp up or weaken. This same tornado caused EF-4 to almost EF-5 damage most of the way from Tuscaloosa to Pratt City, but happens to weaken to mostly EF-2 strength once it reached this guy's complex.
Go DOWN not up! Stay away from windows! I can't believe you went to the third floor just as it could have been wiped out! You ARE LUCKY! God must have big plans for you!
GEEZ!!!! I'm sure he was like there is not one space in this THIRD STORY APARTMENT that would save me from this monster so I'll just film it.. 😕 Soo scary!! Glad you are safe.. 😀👍🙋
That truly is an amazing video. I know being from Middle Tennessee that stuff can get super scary. I live in an apartment too so I can imagine that you were pretty scared. TY for being brave and sharing your video though. Its amazing mother nature :o)
I was working at The Pilot gas station right down the road when this tornado was in Pratt City/Forrest Dale area. I remember the power blinking and traffic lights flipping over the power lines so bad I thought they were gonna fly off. Right after it passed thru around 5/6 that evening, the sky was right back blue like WTH?! Craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my day.
Just saw this video and the photographer on the Discovery Channel special. Went to take cover, but he figured being on the 3rd floor, if that tornado was going to come over him he was probably going to die, might as well film it. BRAVE, and thanks for this intriguing video
Hi (former?) upstairs neighbor. Thanks for the footage, glad you didn't get blown away! We were huddled in the bathroom by the time it got to us. We actually didn't know how close it had truly come to us until we saw your video. Just thought our missing trees were a spin-off or whatever, considering how wide the damage path was. Still pretty unbelievable, 10 months later.
Im a volunteer firefighter in Fultondale and I remember riding around checking on love ones and I kinda laugh to myself not because it was funny but it was odd seeing one side of Fultondale untouched and the other like a war zone and you were lucky you were on the good side
Deer With a Beard what’s really weird is seeing a home destroyed and the home right next door with minor damage. I was helping with cleanup after a EF3 came through Clay and Trussville. In one neighborhood where the only fatality occurred there was a home with only the basement remaining, while the houses on either side had windows blown out and some siding peeled off. These houses were only about 30-40 feet from the home that was completely destroyed. I am still amazed at just how quick Fultondale built back after that beast. There are still several areas in Clay that were destroyed that are still empty lots.
Dude, maybe you really just don't know. It's simple, really: when the storms come, head down, NOT up. The entire 2nd story of your building with you and everything you own could very easily have ended up strewn about in that grove of trees. You are one LUCKY m/f!!
yes that was an ef4. he was just right on the end of it,he was not in the main circulation. this is the same tornado that traveled from tuscaloosa all the way through birmingham.
Dude...buddy...you do realize that you may be the only person on the planet who has videotaped inside of an F freeking 4 Tornado? Not only lived but held onto their camera to tell about it? I've watched tons of tornado vids and this is effing legit. Nice work bro!
I've gotta say it. You weren't particularly bright for filming this outside of a shelter on the edge on an EF-4 tornado, but I as a tornado nerd would probably attempt the same. :P This has always been one of my favorite videos from April 27th... there are VERY few other videos that clearly show the tornado itself from Fultondale from within the rain curtain! The trees snapping and falling near the end is chilling. Kudos on the incredible video.
And just to clarify- Im not making light of the fatalities that did occur, I know many of the people whose homes were totally destroyed had no where to go...but vids like this concern me- people need to take these things seriously, when a weatherman/woman on TV tells you to get to shelter, take them seriously!
I would have definitely went down to someone else's apartment instead of stay upstairs you would have been gone for sure if that thing directly hit you. Awesome fucking video! But you dont just stand outside and wait for it to get that close to you, that's just suicide
@FreakOfNurture Gotta agree with you on this...one of the basic rules about safety is to stay away from windows to avoid potential impalement by flying debris.
@Thyme2dream I respect your point.. and you are correct. However, up until the point the video starts, I had been in and out and heard nothing mentioned of our location and there was sunshine outside. I didn't see the storm and go run grab a camera. I will say that I'm sorry for everyone that was lost on this day. Take care..
dude you're lucky to have even survived it looked like you were safe but it barely passed you and you're crazy to even have stander outside recording it but very gutsy man
Apparently anthony you have never been in a tornado. Rite before the tornado hits there is hardly any air movement at all. Sometimes the grass doesn't move birds fly away, animals go crazy, & then you hear the rumble and all hell breaks loose..... Not everything is fake.
@oolon1 thanks, and true.. but I never said they failed, I said I didn't hear Fultondale mentioned. When I step outside and see nothing in the sky but rain and partly sunshine, and there are no sirens and "towards the Birmingham Airport" is much more east than where I am.. I'm not expecting it to be on top of me. We can have all these debates until we're blue in the face, but the only point I've made is that I had no idea that it was as close as it was. Spann and the other guys did fantastic.
I'm from Warrior and my boy plays F'dale a lot in sports. We were at the baseball fields just 1/4 mile South of your apartments Tue., and from the hill at fields you can still see all the damage left behind to trees and the hotel. Scary day. We got hit by a small tornado that morning a had lots of damage. Nothing like the big ones.
yea dude awesome footage. i love videos like this. i saw you on the discovery channel also and on the weather channel. im in phenix city,ala and we were lucky here that the storms didnt cut to the east a little more or it would have came through here,but later that evening a couple small ones hit lagrange,ga which is 40 miles from here. but once again great video!
Tornado-warning systems have been greatly improved since 2011. Regardless, you are supposed to go down not up during a tornado. Just ask that Cinci couple who were sleeping in their upstairs bedroom when one hit in the middle of the night. It sucked their baby and crib right out of the house. The baby miraculously survived with slight scratches.
I'm confused... did you flee into the apartment just to immediately run out onto the porch? Seems like you could have just stayed where you were instead.
Perfect example of why you never rely on hearing a tornado siren. The warning lead times were very good on April 27th, but hearing a siren is never guaranteed, particularly on that day with such widespread power outages having already occurred. Gotta have a NOAA weather radio and/or an app that sends alerts.
Sirens are ww1 technology and should never ever be used as a tornado warning system. 1 they run off electricity, 2 they require someone to physically set them off and 3 they can only be heard for a max about 5 miles...depending in wind direction.
@FreakOfNurture Gotta agree with you on this...one of the basic rules about safety is to stay away from windows to avoid potential impalement by flying debris. Glad you;re OK though.
I saw the article in the B'ham paper about your video but I recognize it from the discovery Chanel special. BTW for anyone who does not realize, you should be in the lowest level and interior room of your building. I read about people here in Tuscaloosa who didn't seem to know what to do and almost didn't get to a safe place in time.
@FreakOfNurture i dont know if you've seen pictures of the devastation this tornado caused, but even if he was inside the building on the bottom floor in the middle of the apartment complex, he would have still probably died had the tornado hit his area directly instead of sideswiping it. instead of staying inside, waiting for the tornado to hit, he chose to document it...chances are if the tornado were closer to him he woulda been dead regardless of being on the balcony or indoors.
The hackleburg tornado came through Limestone County where I live it was a very big tornado bigger than that one EF5 stayed on the ground for a long time I had clothes in my yard hats coats plywood shingles I got a big filled out front of house it was covered up in debris falling out of the storm totally amazing to watch my heart was pounding a thousand miles an hour and I was 12 miles from it
@FreakOfNurture maybe it was reckless, but that's not exactly how it happened.. but I'm all for the spirit of creativity and sharing. My thoughts were of sharing a moment I was in.. not an adrenaline rush.
@Thyme2dream You also have to factor in that many homes couldn't withstand the winds of those tornadoes because they were simply too powerful and ripped them to shreds.
wow, i work for a utility co, i spent DAYS in Fultondale following the storm, it was bad messed up. I'm trying to figure out which apts this was shot from. I know there were 2 sets of apts that sat right on US31 that were pretty much wiped out, pretty sure it wasn't from there...but close!
@Meso5399 I agree. That looked like a massive tornado. If it was a direct hit, those cars in the parking lot, at least most of them, would have been gone. That said, absolutely amazing footage!
Can't believe I haven't seen this footage before, absolutely incredible display of nature at it's scariest, props to you for the footage!
I just saw today love when these pop up searches for Fultondale tornado cause daughter has softball tournament there in June 2023😊
For some reason I remember this video being in higher quality... You could really see the trees across the parking lot being pulled down by the tornado, and in this they're all fuzzy. Weird.
Dude if you can reupload this at a higher quality, it's great stuff.
This particular tornado appears to have just skirted by the actual complex. It seems his location was on the outer fringes of the circulation, undoubtedly saving him from further complication.
yeah he was about 100 yards away from the field that used to be a forest but i think the biggest wind factor is he was on the north side of the tornado. Most of the large damaging tornado vids i've seen you have rear flank downdraft and another very powerful inflow jet feeding into the tornado from the south, and the tornado itself can completely pass by a structure to the north but when these inflow jets come in behind it they can level a well built frame house in the more powerful tornadoes. i think the damage swath is less of a straight defined path and takes on more of a , comma shape or a 9 at any given time
Ever since I was caught in the 74 Outbreak I've been fascinated with Tornados, and I've seen hundreds of hours of Tornado footage, and I'll admit that this footage has to be on my top three easy! This was amazing footage, thank you!
That was a HUGE tornado! You are very lucky!
Dude. You are crazy to stand outside to get this footage. But what would RUclips be without videos like this? Awesome video, man. Glad you are safe.
One of the best videos I've seen from April 27th.
Kudos to these folks for this AMAZING footage! That took guts to video such a monstrous tornado!! I am glad you guys are ok!
WOW!!! Awesome footage, and I'm glad you and your family are ok. My stepdaughter lived in the first set of apartments off I-65 at the Fultondale exit. Her building was condemned so she had to move, and she lost her car to the debris. I know this was very scary for all of you, and your footage shows just how dark and menacing something like this is. My daughter used to live in those same apartments -- I'm so glad she moved away. Thanks for sharing this incredible footage.
You guys were part of some kind of miracle. Tornadoes are funny. For some reason, it just wasn't organized enough, right at the moment it struck your apartment complex. We've all seen them level buildings as big, or bigger and even stronger, than what you live in. Glad you guys were OK. Great footage. Thanks for posting it.
Howabouthetruth from the video they got glancing hit from outer bands not much further and would of been a direct hit.
Looked like more of an inflow jet to me than the tornado. Tornado probably passed couple hundred yards away. Still a very dangerous position to be in, means you are too close to the tornado
I live in that apartment building where it shows it first coming over. Thank God me & my baby girl evacuated before it hit, I would have been terrified. Thanks for ur bravery in filming!!
One of the best clips I have ever seen....crazy as hell...no way would I have gone back out but glad you did so I could see this footage. Excellent.
I have to say, this is one of the best 'up close' tornado footage I've ever seen!
At first I thought this might be a hoax vid when the camera panned to the tv at the beginning, but when the cameraman looks outside and sees it coming, you know it's for real.
Excellent clip guys!
I have to say that was the calmest "oh shit" ever uttered while filming a tornado heading right at you! Well played, sir!
4/27/11 was no doubt the worst day of my life. Our weather radio woke us up at 4:00 in the morning so we turn on the news and there is a tornado over us. And that happened the rest of the day until sun down. And phones were down. Cell phones, Internet. There was no way of getting in touch with loved ones so you had no idea who was alive or not. I will never forget that day! Still makes me so scared to think about it
WOW... I was LITERALLY about 75 yds away from you in this vid... I was trying to explain to everyone how close, the same tornado that hit ttown, got close to me without visuals... I ran in the house when I saw the cloud flowing in opposite directions 😬
Yup. It widened to a massive 1.5 miles, but the wind speed also decreased as a result. Maybe a few isolated spots of EF4 damage, but mostly EF2 & EF3 in this area.
Amazing video. Thanks for staying calm and bringing us this footage.
Was born in Fultondale Alabama. Moved when I was 7 years old in 1963. Our houses roof was ripped off in the 2011 tornado. Fultondale Estates is the neighborhood. Shout out Chris Parks and Smokey and the guys. 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
Great footage but they say be on the lowest floor of the. house very center with as many walls protecting you as possoble
Nothings scarier than being on the top floor of an apartment building and having no place to go
Dude this was one of the best and scariest videos of tornado footage. Thank you for your balls of steel kind sir.
This is quite possibly the best tornado footage that has ever existed, and i've seen just about every video available out there. Just wow.
Thanks for all the concerns.. I got lucky. I'm glad everyone made it okay and very sorry for anyone who lost anyone or property. God Bless..
My friend , I ve always heard close only counts in horseshoes and handgarnades.
I think after seeing this , it counts in tornadoes too.
If it had tracked over your Apts and parking lot full of cars ,well
we prob wouldn't be looking at this video. Glad your ok.
the hell great video! :D
from tv to your camera. thanks for sharing. greets from switzerland!
Looking back, it is incredible to see when tornadoes ramp up or weaken. This same tornado caused EF-4 to almost EF-5 damage most of the way from Tuscaloosa to Pratt City, but happens to weaken to mostly EF-2 strength once it reached this guy's complex.
i live in the back of the apartments and were in the closet. glad to see what the loud noise is and total bless it flew over.
Wow that is some crazy man. Big Props for sticking with and capturing this amazing footage. Thumbs Up!!
I was at work at Oriley's when it went thru that is a day I will never forget
Go DOWN not up! Stay away from windows! I can't believe you went to the third floor just as it could have been wiped out! You ARE LUCKY! God must have big plans for you!
I remember this! I was on the third level in my apartment holding my kitty.
GEEZ!!!! I'm sure he was like there is not one space in this THIRD STORY APARTMENT that would save me from this monster so I'll just film it.. 😕 Soo scary!! Glad you are safe.. 😀👍🙋
That truly is an amazing video. I know being from Middle Tennessee that stuff can get super scary. I live in an apartment too so I can imagine that you were pretty scared. TY for being brave and sharing your video though. Its amazing mother nature :o)
I was working at The Pilot gas station right down the road when this tornado was in Pratt City/Forrest Dale area. I remember the power blinking and traffic lights flipping over the power lines so bad I thought they were gonna fly off. Right after it passed thru around 5/6 that evening, the sky was right back blue like WTH?! Craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my day.
Just saw this video and the photographer on the Discovery Channel special. Went to take cover, but he figured being on the 3rd floor, if that tornado was going to come over him he was probably going to die, might as well film it. BRAVE, and thanks for this intriguing video
Hi (former?) upstairs neighbor. Thanks for the footage, glad you didn't get blown away! We were huddled in the bathroom by the time it got to us. We actually didn't know how close it had truly come to us until we saw your video. Just thought our missing trees were a spin-off or whatever, considering how wide the damage path was. Still pretty unbelievable, 10 months later.
Its scary how y'all can't see that far the trees were already demolished this is great footage I was born in Birmingham
as a survivor of these tornadoes (pratt city/sandusky) i applaud your video. great work. i hope this is your first/last tornado video.
That was right across the street from me, dude you were blessed!!
Im a volunteer firefighter in Fultondale and I remember riding around checking on love ones and I kinda laugh to myself not because it was funny but it was odd seeing one side of Fultondale untouched and the other like a war zone and you were lucky you were on the good side
Deer With a Beard what’s really weird is seeing a home destroyed and the home right next door with minor damage. I was helping with cleanup after a EF3 came through Clay and Trussville. In one neighborhood where the only fatality occurred there was a home with only the basement remaining, while the houses on either side had windows blown out and some siding peeled off. These houses were only about 30-40 feet from the home that was completely destroyed. I am still amazed at just how quick Fultondale built back after that beast. There are still several areas in Clay that were destroyed that are still empty lots.
Dude, maybe you really just don't know. It's simple, really: when the storms come, head down, NOT up. The entire 2nd story of your building with you and everything you own could very easily have ended up strewn about in that grove of trees. You are one LUCKY m/f!!
Man that was an UGLY sky!!!!
yes that was an ef4. he was just right on the end of it,he was not in the main circulation. this is the same tornado that traveled from tuscaloosa all the way through birmingham.
Dude...buddy...you do realize that you may be the only person on the planet who has videotaped inside of an F freeking 4 Tornado? Not only lived but held onto their camera to tell about it? I've watched tons of tornado vids and this is effing legit. Nice work bro!
Wow that truly looks like hell on earth!!! Total darkness!!! And the howl of the wind!! Chill bumps!
Good Lord!!! What on earth made you stay on the 3rd floor??????
Man, I'm sure by now you know exactly how lucky you were!! WOW! Great footage!
What if.. he STILL doesn't know...
Wow! Great footage.
I've gotta say it. You weren't particularly bright for filming this outside of a shelter on the edge on an EF-4 tornado, but I as a tornado nerd would probably attempt the same. :P This has always been one of my favorite videos from April 27th... there are VERY few other videos that clearly show the tornado itself from Fultondale from within the rain curtain! The trees snapping and falling near the end is chilling. Kudos on the incredible video.
Not very smart to film this but maybe the best tornado video I’ve seen and I’m addicted to them.
I've been looking for this video for some time now
...thought about it yesterday and here it is, mos def saving it now 👍🏾
And just to clarify- Im not making light of the fatalities that did occur, I know many of the people whose homes were totally destroyed had no where to go...but vids like this concern me- people need to take these things seriously, when a weatherman/woman on TV tells you to get to shelter, take them seriously!
Wow! Your crazy! Great shot and I am glad your ok! I'm happy your house didn't get hit by the funnel! I guess the debris isn't too destructive.
Thanks for sharing. I am glad you are ok. Wow!
That's one of the craziest tornado videos I've ever seen. You gotta have some huge balls to stand there and film that.
I would have definitely went down to someone else's apartment instead of stay upstairs you would have been gone for sure if that thing directly hit you. Awesome fucking video! But you dont just stand outside and wait for it to get that close to you, that's just suicide
@megeliwag thank you, and I'm very sorry to hear about your loss.
wow the wind sound towards the end was wicked and how fast those trees went down that is creepy but you were brave i have respect for that.
I'm so glad you're okay
@FreakOfNurture Gotta agree with you on this...one of the basic rules about safety is to stay away from windows to avoid potential impalement by flying debris.
Great footage! Not for the weak hearted😢
@Thyme2dream I respect your point.. and you are correct. However, up until the point the video starts, I had been in and out and heard nothing mentioned of our location and there was sunshine outside. I didn't see the storm and go run grab a camera. I will say that I'm sorry for everyone that was lost on this day. Take care..
Scary day for all of us. We got hit in Warrior that morning. Then that afternoon I was in F'dale. Hope I never go through it again.
dude you're lucky to have even survived it looked like you were safe but it barely passed you and you're crazy to even have stander outside recording it but very gutsy man
Apparently anthony you have never been in a tornado. Rite before the tornado hits there is hardly any air movement at all. Sometimes the grass doesn't move birds fly away, animals go crazy, & then you hear the rumble and all hell breaks loose..... Not everything is fake.
Wow that was so close and the tornado is so much bigger
@oolon1 thanks, and true.. but I never said they failed, I said I didn't hear Fultondale mentioned. When I step outside and see nothing in the sky but rain and partly sunshine, and there are no sirens and "towards the Birmingham Airport" is much more east than where I am.. I'm not expecting it to be on top of me. We can have all these debates until we're blue in the face, but the only point I've made is that I had no idea that it was as close as it was. Spann and the other guys did fantastic.
The same exact tornado that had already hit Tuscaloosa-Birmingham
That had to be intense. Walk out, there it is. Look out again, scene from a movie. Great footage and video
I'm from Warrior and my boy plays F'dale a lot in sports. We were at the baseball fields just 1/4 mile South of your apartments Tue., and from the hill at fields you can still see all the damage left behind to trees and the hotel. Scary day. We got hit by a small tornado that morning a had lots of damage. Nothing like the big ones.
That is freaking terrifying. Great footage.
yea dude awesome footage. i love videos like this. i saw you on the discovery channel also and on the weather channel. im in phenix city,ala and we were lucky here that the storms didnt cut to the east a little more or it would have came through here,but later that evening a couple small ones hit lagrange,ga which is 40 miles from here. but once again great video!
I wish you the best of luck! Honestly.
holy crap dustin! glad you're alive.
Tornado-warning systems have been greatly improved since 2011.
Regardless, you are supposed to go down not up during a tornado. Just ask that Cinci couple who were sleeping in their upstairs bedroom when one hit in the middle of the night. It sucked their baby and crib right out of the house. The baby miraculously survived with slight scratches.
Just amazing… right on the edge of mortality
I'm confused... did you flee into the apartment just to immediately run out onto the porch? Seems like you could have just stayed where you were instead.
I've watched a couple of videos from this same storm, were there not any sirens at all?
***** Ah, I understand. That's a shame that they don't do anything to improve it.
No. I never heard a siren at all. It was very fast.
Perfect example of why you never rely on hearing a tornado siren. The warning lead times were very good on April 27th, but hearing a siren is never guaranteed, particularly on that day with such widespread power outages having already occurred. Gotta have a NOAA weather radio and/or an app that sends alerts.
Please! dont wait for sirens.
bette listen to james spann
Sirens are ww1 technology and should never ever be used as a tornado warning system. 1 they run off electricity, 2 they require someone to physically set them off and 3 they can only be heard for a max about 5 miles...depending in wind direction.
"Is that it?" As if there's a competing piece of the sky he wants to judge against
HOLY. SHIT. This is some great footage! Glad you're ok for sure! Badassery :)
Yeah, the thing kinda started to fall apart for awhile around Fultondale and Trussville.
that whole side of the sky was swirling
@minuszr0 really cool footage man glad your ok i live in pittsburgh so i cant even imagine what that would feel like.
Closest I've seen thus far of this storm. I live 1/2mile from Pratt City between Arkadelphia Rd. and Finley.......barely got missed.
was this in the chapel creek apartment complex?
@FreakOfNurture Gotta agree with you on this...one of the basic rules about safety is to stay away from windows to avoid potential impalement by flying debris. Glad you;re OK though.
I saw the article in the B'ham paper about your video but I recognize it from the discovery Chanel special. BTW for anyone who does not realize, you should be in the lowest level and interior room of your building. I read about people here in Tuscaloosa who didn't seem to know what to do and almost didn't get to a safe place in time.
Incredible footage!!!
@FreakOfNurture i dont know if you've seen pictures of the devastation this tornado caused, but even if he was inside the building on the bottom floor in the middle of the apartment complex, he would have still probably died had the tornado hit his area directly instead of sideswiping it. instead of staying inside, waiting for the tornado to hit, he chose to document it...chances are if the tornado were closer to him he woulda been dead regardless of being on the balcony or indoors.
Dude you may be the bravest man alive
The hackleburg tornado came through Limestone County where I live it was a very big tornado bigger than that one EF5 stayed on the ground for a long time I had clothes in my yard hats coats plywood shingles I got a big filled out front of house it was covered up in debris falling out of the storm totally amazing to watch my heart was pounding a thousand miles an hour and I was 12 miles from it
Wayne Burks it decapitated my dad,,rip papa
Dude, you have got balls of steel.
holy crap you were rediculously close to that thing. Glad you're okay
@minuszr0 Did your high school get demolished in this?
Didn't hear any warning sirens. Do you not have them?
@FreakOfNurture maybe it was reckless, but that's not exactly how it happened.. but I'm all for the spirit of creativity and sharing. My thoughts were of sharing a moment I was in.. not an adrenaline rush.
@Thyme2dream
You also have to factor in that many homes couldn't withstand the winds of those tornadoes because they were simply too powerful and ripped them to shreds.
wow, i work for a utility co, i spent DAYS in Fultondale following the storm, it was bad messed up. I'm trying to figure out which apts this was shot from. I know there were 2 sets of apts that sat right on US31 that were pretty much wiped out, pretty sure it wasn't from there...but close!
@Meso5399 I agree. That looked like a massive tornado. If it was a direct hit, those cars in the parking lot, at least most of them, would have been gone. That said, absolutely amazing footage!
Aren’t those the apartments just off of exit 266 on the left, after you pass those 2 hotels?
They are off the Walker Chapel exit.