Where I live we have been hit 3x in the last 3 years. I was hit directly 3 years ago. Took 13 trees out of my yard that were all over 36" in diameter and around 70-80' tall. Did around $11k damage to my house and I was the luckiest guy in the neighbohood. The next year the whole town was hit, storm (EF-4)stayed on the ground for over 30 miles. The storm hit about a block from me that time and went right thru the middle of town, took out hundreds of houses, $1.6 million damage to the new high school that was not finished yet. Destroyed 10's of 1000's of trees. Business's completely gone. There are things around me that you could never see and now that the trees are gone you can see it all. Then last april 27th, the north end of Alabama was hit with the worst day of Tornado's in US history (26 of them in 12 hours all EF3- EF4, 55 of them in 24 hours), there was not a town north of Birmingham that was not affected. Took me 4 1/2 hours to get home from work that day, every major road in the north end of the state had trees laying on it. We were without power for 5-20 days depending on where you lived. They are still cleaning up from last april and probably will be for another year. It was so bad in some areas that hollywood filmed 2 movies here due to the conditions looking apocaylptic. There was a clinic in Tuscaloosa that was destroyed and medical records and such were found more than 100 miles away in the town of Piedmont. Even though those storms missed me by several miles there was debri dropped in my yard from towns 30-40 miles away. One of the Tonado's tracked right down the side of Lake Guntersville, huge lake, big with the bassmaster series took out the entire state park, destroyed 100's of campers and wiped the boat docks, bath houses and cabins out, there were dozens of people trapped in the bath houses, they survived after the buildings fell in on them but nobody is sure how.
The death toll for those storms last april for Alabama was 243 confirmed dead in 19 counties.
I would wish storms like these on nobody, the only good side of these storms was a chance to see the good in people and going without power for so long sure made the kids appreciate what they have alot more!!
Glad all is ok with you, hope the best for the areas around you. Alabama and Florida have already sent some of the best trained storm crews in the country to Indiana and Kentucky, hopefully it will help!!
Stats for 2 of the storms from an Alabama site.
EF-5: Hackelburg-Phil Campbell-Hillsboro-Tanner-East Limestone-Harvest
- flattened 3 churches, 10 chicken houses, 3 restaurants, a Wrangler plant, and Hackleburg High School
- well-constructed houses cleanly swept from their foundations
- debris scattered up to a mile away
- mobile home frames thrown 25-50 yards
EF-4: Tuscaloosa to Birmingham
- on the ground for 80.3 miles
- up to 1.5 miles wide
- moved at 70 mph