Early April Memories

J.B. Elliott and Bill Murray did a great job this past weekend in sharing details of our famous weather events here over the years on April 3 and April 4. I really was not involved in the April 4, 1977 Smithfield tornado in north Birmingham; at the time I was a college student, and working in radio at WTBC, the BIG 1230 in Tuscaloosa (I did not get to Birmingham television until 1979). I was working that day on the air from 3:00 until 7:00 p.m., and recall seeing the bulletins flowing in concerning the Birmingham tornado disaster, but the whole thing was over by the time I got off the air. I do recall going into the Smithfield Estates neighborhood in 1982 and doing a story on the fifth anniversary of the event when I was at Channel 13. You could still clearly pick out the track of the tornado five years later.

I was heavily involved in the 1974 superoutbreak the night of April 3, 1974. I was a senior in high school, and worked that night at the Tuscaloosa County Civil Defense HQ working as net control for the amateur radio spotter network. When it was clear there was serious damage to the north of us, I was sent north to set up my equipment and help establish communication from the hardest hit areas back to relief agencies in Birmingham. My first assignment was the People’s Hospital (the CHS community center in downtown Jasper now sits on that site); I pretty much spent that night at the hospital sending messages to the Red Cross in Birmingham; it was a night I will never forget. Patient after patient was brought into the emergency room, and many of the injuries were quite serious. Jasper was hit hard, but thankfully there were no fatalities in Walker county.

The administrative staff at Tuscaloosa High School let me stay out of school for a few days to help the amateur radio effort across north Alabama, and what I saw is part of the reason I am in this business today. Seems like it happened just yesterday.